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Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:40:29 -0300Photo Credit: Black-crowned Night Heron - Wikipedia.com
From: Roger Burrows, NBNature listserv
Subject: Grand Manan birds, inc. Great Egret , Black-crowned Night-Heron, Barred Owl and Brown Thrasher
June 13
Ox Head area 08:40-10:25
Double-crested Cormorant, 2 American Black Duck pairs. singing Red-eyed Vireo, 2+ red-breasted Nuthatches, 7 wood-warblers
Grand Harbour--Foster Hill Road & Woods 18:45-19:35
4 wood-warblers
Grand Harbour--Hill Road & Woods 19:35-20:40 Green-winged Teal pair
June 14
Ox Head area 07:00-08:30 10 American Black Ducks, male Mallard, male American WigeonxMallard, 3 male American Wigeons, adult Bald Eagle. possible singing Canada Warbler
June 15
North Head area 06:00-07:45
GREAT EGRET flying over the harbour towards Castalia, Eastern Phoebe, Northern Mockingbird
Tatton's Corner 08:15-09:00
Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Red-breasted Nuthatch pair at a nest, female Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Castalia Marsh 09:10-10:10
2 Bald Eagles, Blue-headed Vireo, 5 wood-warblers, 5 Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrows
Grand Manan Bird Sanctuary 10:35-11:35
2 American Black Duck broods, 9 Ring-necked Ducks, adult BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT-HERON, adult Bald Eagle
Deep Cove 11:50-12:30
Eastern Kingbird; no sign of the territorial White-eyed Vireo seen in late May
North Head 13:45-15:15
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, 5 wood-warblers, Northern Cardinal pair (Durant Drive)
June 16
North Head area 08:15-09:15
2 duelling Eastern Wood-Pewees, 5 wood-warblers
Bay of Fundy trip from North Head 09:30-15:30
3 immature Great Cormorants, 140 Common Eiders, inc. the first 20 small ducklings (Net Point), adult Bald Eagle, 2 Black-legged Kittiwakes, 2 Razorbills, 39 Black Guillemots, 4 Atlantic Puffins, 30+ Bank Swallows (Nantucket Island colony)
June 17
Thoroughfare Road & Shore Road 13:10-15:30
first Alder Flycatcher with food, 6 wood-warblers
Marathon Inn ca 17:00
BROWN THRASHER being chased by nesting Gray Catbird
Dark Harbour Road 20:15-22:15 an extremely co-operative BARRED OWL (excellent views in the open for 20 Elderhostelers), 2 singing Winter Wrens
June 18
North Head area 05:00-06:30
Ruby-throated Hummingbird, 2 singing Winter Wrens, 5 wood-warblers and a possible singing Canada Warbler
From my Elderhostel tours and Atlas work, I've noted an appreciable drop in nesting flycatchers (even Alder), thrushes, kinglets and wood-warblers (except Northern Parula, Yellow, Magnolia, Black-throated Green, American Redstart and Common Yellowthroat. I suspect the problem is mortality at wintering sites as species that don't leave North America seem to be at their usual numbers. Particularly hard-hit seem to be Least & Yellow-bellied Flycatchers, Swainson's Thrush & Veery, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Black-throated Blue and Mourning Warblers, Northern Waterthrush and Wilson's Warbler. There has been an explosion of wood-cutting here on Grand Manan in the last two years but there appears to be lots of unused habitats. Unlike others, I have yet to hear a territorial Tennessee Warbler on Grand Manan.
Roger Burrows
Ingalls Head
Grand Manan
PS We had 2 LUNA MOTHS and what appeared to be a CERISY'S SPHINX MOTH on the Marathon Inn entrance door this morning.
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:45:13 -0300
ReplyDeleteFrom: "Diamond, Tony" NBNature listserv
Subject: The Machias Seal Island seabird colony
Recently David Christie invited me indirectly to summarise the situation with the tern
colony on Machias Seal Island from the perspective of one who has studied the seabirds
there every year since 1994. The summary below is a belated response to that
invitation.
There seem to be many changes going on around Machias Seal Island that have created a
“perfect storm” for the tern colony there, which first abandoned in 2006 and has
continued – including this summer – to begin nesting each year in small numbers but
then abandon some time during June. Note that in CWS records going back about 120 years
there is only one previous record of abandonment, in 1944, & the birds were back the
following year.
The recent changes include:
a) a “bottom-up” change in the foodweb, initiated by (as yet unclear)
oceanographic/climatic changes; this is suggested by the change in diet of the seabirds,
showing a steady reduction in the proportion of juvenile herring ("brit") with a sharp
drop since 2001, in all the species monitored, and their replacement by lower-quality
food (euphausiid shrimp, larval fish);
b) increased predation by gulls, clearly implicated in the initial abandonment
(in
2006), and increasing every year - this year and last, 20+ pairs of Herring gulls have
nested just offshore on Gull Rock, compared with a handful in previous years; this is
related to reduced gull-control efforts by CWS since 2000;
c) increased availability of food to those gulls (from bait discarded by lobster-
and crab-fishermen) perhaps subsidizing them to stay through the summer; the increase in
this fishing in the “Grey Zone” referred to earlier by David is part of this;
d) “greening” of the coastguard facility, leading to construction of solar panels
and a wind turbine; the wind turbine did NOT kill any terns, was not operational in the
year the terns first abandoned, and cannot be “fingered” as a direct cause, but is yet
another construction on the island that may have had a cumulative impact on the birds’
decisions not to return;
e) Regarding fishing pressure, the last stock assessment I saw (from the Dept. of
Fisheries & Oceans) showed unprecedented fishing mortality and low “stock biomass” but
they maintain stoutly that herring are not being overfished. They have however reduced
the purse-seine quota and established a quota on herring weirs (previously
unregulated).
My research students and I continue to try to figure out this tangled web of potential
causes and their interactions, focusing now – by default – on the puffins and
razorbills, whose continued presence must be put in doubt by the absence of the
“protective umbrella” of the tern colony and the subsequent increase in gull predation
on the island.
Tony Diamond
A.W. Diamond, Ph.D.
Research Professor, Wildlife Ecology
University of New Brunswick