Subject: Re: Stilt Sandpipers
Date: Aug 20 00:30:04 1997
From: Michael Price - mprice at mindlink.bc.ca


Hi Tweets

Phil Kelley writes, about the Stilt Sandpiper hordes this year, and the
possibility of weather-related shifts in southbound migration:

>Good call!! I'm glad someone is awake to catch other possible implications of
>this shift in migration route.

Hard to know what may be happening in Vancouver or Victoria BC (at Boundary
Bay, say, where events may completely give the lie to the above) as they so
infrequently post to the list, and I'm sorry to say I know about the local
scene only what I read here on Tweeters. I'm afraid my attempts during the
years I was in the loop to animate a sense of regionalism rather than a
proprietary and insular parochialism seem to have failed pretty much.

Well, in the on-deck circle is Buff-breasted Sandpiper (avg juv arrival
8/26--Avg Departure 9/19). If the trend is for a westward shift for
southbound north-central birds which usually migrate through the interior of
the continent, I'd look for more of these than usual (3 or more) this year.
Another I'd expect would be Hudsonian Godwit (adult southbound arrival 7/18;
juv arrival 8/11; departure 9/19), but they've been absent this year as far
as I know and nothing else is showing this atypical migrational abundance.

Vancouver BC's had a *lot* of Stilt Sandpipers this year, but I'd offer that
this is just a bell-curve extreme, and may have more to do with population
dynamics within the species than atmospherics influencing a lot of other
species: the others simply aren't showing that effect, here at any rate.

But likewise, looking forward to Jack's reply! Oh, I can't resist. When are
you going to do that book on weather and migration in the West, Jack?

Michael Price The Sleep of Reason Gives Birth to Monsters
Vancouver BC Canada -Goya
mprice at mindlink.net