Whimbrel Watch
Recognizing the need to standardize procedures for recording the numbers of Whimbrel, in 2009 the Toronto Ornithological Club (TOC) established the Whimbrel Migration Watch at Colonel Samuel Smith Park on the Toronto Waterfront. In the same year, TOC partnered with The Center for Conservation Biology in Virginia, USA, a research organization that placed satellite transmitters and radio transmitters on Whimbrel in order to track their migration. Toronto is an important monitoring location with 10 of 38 radio tagged birds in Georgia and Virginia detected in 2009 at Colonel Samuel Smith Park, and in 2010 a Whimbrel with a satellite transmitter was seen and photographed at Tommy Thompson Park (Leslie Street Spit).
We have learned a tremendous amount about Whimbrel migration by following the epic journeys of tagged Whimbrel from wintering areas in the Caribbean and South America to spring staging areas in Virginia and Georgia, then over Toronto and the Great Lakes to the Hudson Bay Lowlands and the MacKenzie River Delta in the Yukon.
Every May, Whimbrel watchers arrive at Colonel Sam Smith Park as the sun rises and scan Lake Ontario for flocks of vocal Whimbrel, their trilling calls often heard before they are seen. Mornings are best because Whimbrel depart the US East Coast the evening before, fly all night and arrive on the north shore of Lake Ontario in the morning. We hope you will join us to watch Whimbrels as they migrate to their northern breeding grounds.
Since the early 20th century, Toronto ornithologists have noted the impressive spring migration of Whimbrel past the city’s waterfront within a narrow time frame between 22 and 27 May. In some years, as much as one-quarter of the entire eastern North American population passes along the Lake Ontario shoreline. Afforded protection by the Migratory Birds Convention Act of 1917, the Whimbrel population rebounded from intense market hunting in the 19th century. However, recently we learned that the population has undergone a 50% reduction over the past 20 years.