2014 Whimbrel Watch establishes new high mark
(http://www.ccbbirds.org/2014/06/23/2014-whimbrel-watch-establishes-new-high-mark/)
By Bryan Watts
It begins with a nearly imperceptible whistle and then a faint line along the
horizon. In minutes the flock will be overhead treating the team of counters
to a full chorus of contact calls. Flock after flock of whimbrels follows this
same flight line in the last three hours of the evening. By morning they will
be in Toronto, some 800 kilometers (500 miles) away. Within five days they
will be on their arctic breeding grounds preparing a nest for eggs. The
onlookers have come to a dock on Box Tree Creek along the lower Delmarva
Peninsula to count the birds as they pass and to see them off on their long,
nonstop flight north. The birds have been here in the marshes for three weeks
gorging on fiddler crabs and putting on fat to fuel the flight.
Since the spring of 2009, The Center for Conservation Biology and The Nature
Conservancy have teamed up to run a "leaving count" of whimbrels around the
third week of May. In 2014, the count covered eight days between the 20th and
27th of May and documented 132 flocks totaling 8,249 whimbrels. The 2014 total
is a record high for the site and represents a significant portion of the
population for the entire Western Hemisphere. In addition to whimbrels, the
counters recorded 642 black-bellied plovers, 894 dunlin, and 2,021 short-billed
dowitchers leaving for the arctic.
The birds gather, rally up out of the marsh, assemble in V formations, and head
north. Until recently, researchers did not know where the birds staging here
were headed.
A satellite tracking project conducted by the group in this location has
demonstrated that the birds represent a mixture from two breeding populations.
Some will fly 3,000 kilometers to breeding grounds within the Hudson Bay
Lowlands. Others will fly the longer 4,800 kilometers to nest within the
Mackenzie Delta in extreme western Canada.
______________________________________________________
Michael Wilson
Center for Conservation Biology
College of William and Mary & Virginia Commonwealth University
P.O. Box 8795
Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795
phone: 757-221-1649
fax: 757-221-1650
email: mdwils@xxxxxx
web: www.ccbbirds.org
