darroch....@gmail.com
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A group of us spent the past week doing bird surveys on islands in Placentia Bay with the goal of trying to get a sense of bird community composition on islands lacking Red Squirrels. We were originally planning to do this on islands in Bay of Exploits but we were driven elsewhere by the late pack ice. Team included Pierre Ryan, Regina Wells, Gabrielle Robineau-Charette, Brenda Kelly, Noah Korne and myself. Lots of interesting observations of common birds (too many to report here). For me it was eye opening to spend time on the Merasheen archipelago, which is free of two of our most destructive and pervasive introduced species (moose and squirrels) yet has caribou so gave me a window into how ecosystems on Newfoundland might have looked in past.|This was most obvious in terms of the more challenging walking due to the tangly vegetation and lack of moose trails, but you also saw things like enormous wild raisin, Canada Yew and Mountain Holly as well as the fact that the black spruce still have cones from last fall, which are often all harvested by squirrels in fall elsewhere. Caribou trails were appreciated for travel but are somewhat different in natre from moose trails. Snowshoe hares are on all the islands.
We spent 3 days on the Measheen archipelago, including visits to King Island, North Tilt Islands, South Tilt Island, Merasheen Island, and various others. We also spent one day /night on Woody Island and Sound Island (latter has moose with lots of veg damage due to high moose numbers; and both have squirrels in seemingly low numbers). Some bird highlights in no particular order:
- Bird communities solidly northern boreal. Piles of Yellow-bellied Flycatchers, Fox Sparrows, and Northern Waterthrush throughout the Merasheen archipelago. Also lots of Swamp Sparrows but the flashier warblers were rare (Wilson's etc.).
- winter wrens were common everywhere.
- Red Crossbills at Best's Harbour (6) and Merasheen (2); made me wonder if this island group is a refuge for them from squirrel competition for cones.
- Gray-cheeked Thrushes seen on several island including cluster in Best's Harbour / Tacks Beach that included at least 7 singing males and maybe several more.
- Great Horned Owl calling at Woody Island.
- Goshawk nest with 2 large chicks on King Island.
Darroch and others