Have Passport, Will Travel!: Studying and Saving Shore Birds

There were many exciting research projects going on at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre and some of them involved birds. Two very special people, Carol O'Dwyer and Toby Mankis studied shorebird physiology related to environment and climate change.

Their research project focused on collecting detailed ecological and physiological data on juvenile growth of shorebirds in order to test key hypotheses regarding both the direct and indirect effects of climate change on sub-arctic nesting shorebirds. Their duties consisted of a combination of nest searching, nest monitoring, banding adult shorebirds on the nest, banding chicks in the nest, re-capturing and re-sighting of color banded chicks in the field to measure growth and survival, arthropod monitoring, rearing of captive chicks and measuring active and resting metabolic rates of captive chicks.

In a nutshell, two people did the nonstop work of ten and did this work objectively as scientists and sensitively as humanists. And they did it plagued by the largest and most prolific insect populations I have ever seen and I LIVE in Florida and TRAVEL to African jungles!

Here are some pictures of their work with shorebirds including the Dunlin, Short-billed Dowitcher, and Least Sandpiper.