Volunteers and staff with the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia Piping Plover Conservation Program survey over 50 beaches at regular intervals throughout the spring and summer each year. Together in 2019, we conducted over 600 beach surveys!
June is a special month for me, marking two important things. First is my daughter’s birthday. Then – immediately following – is my annual trip to Baccalieu Island, Newfoundland, where I study the declining Leach’s Storm-Petrel with my friend and colleague Dr. April Hedd.
In late summer, hundreds of thousands of shorebirds stop over in the Bay of Fundy’s Minas Basin, in Nova Scotia, during their remarkable migration to South America. They require access to beaches and other coastal sites where they can rest when mudflat foraging habitat is covered during high tide.
Completing my fifth annual pilgrimage to Baccalieu Island, NL, I spent one gloriously sunny week this July assisting Dr. April Hedd, Wildlife Biologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, in studying Leach’s Storm-Petrels.
