This spring in Manitoba we counted seven birds, you heard that right, 7 adult birds. Two pairs at Grand Beach, one pair at Grand Marais and I saw a single male on Gimli Beach, probably the same bird that nested there successfully last year. However, it takes two to tango and so with no female, there was no nest at Gimli this year.
Manitoba has a very good birding community and between their birding forays and my surveys those were the only birds identified. And believe me, I searched all their historical haunts up and down the west side of Lake Winnipeg and the east side of Lake Manitoba; Delta, Stoney Beach, Clandeboye Bay Special Conservation Area, Twin Lakes Beach, Lundar Beach, Watchorn Beach, Chalet Beach, Winnipeg Beach, Willow Point, Gimli Beach, Riverton Sandy Bar, Hecla Sand Spit and the North Bar of Gull Bay south of Grand Rapids; and visited some of these sites two and three times.
My colleagues Shauna and Morgan did the same on the east side of Lake Winnipeg.
The last International Census conducted in 2006, counted about 7000 birds across North America. That number was made up of the Atlantic population, Great Lakes population and the Northern Great Plains population of which Manitoba is a part. Although the numbers were up from 2001, in terms of bird numbers, 7000 is still a very small population. As the Census is conducted every five years, next year will be the fifth one conducted since the inaugural Census in 1991. And as the majority of birds from the Northern Great Plains population winter along the Gulf of Mexico coast, which is currently under siege from the Deep Water Horizon oil spill catastrophe, it will be very interesting to see what next spring's census numbers will be. Stay tuned.
KP
