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SITE NAME
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Coats Island, Nunavut, Canada
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| Contact details
(phone/fax//e-mail//address): |
| (613)990-2384/(613)998-0458(fax) // paulallen.smith@ec.gc.ca // National Wildlife Research Centre, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, K1A 0H3, Canada
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PROJECT DETAILS |
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Project name:
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Shorebirds of Coats Island
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Start of survey:
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End
of survey: |
Team
size: |
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1.06
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27.07
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3
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WEATHER
CONDITIONS
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Weather conditions: |
| Snow cover reduced to 50% on before arrival on 1 June, and completely melted on 7 June. In stark contrast to 2004, there was little snow upon our arrival to the field site this year. However, the summer was quite cool and rainy, particularly in July. Researchers at another camp on the island tell us that this cool rainy weather persisted into August.
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| Date of ice-break on
rivers: |
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| Date of final loss of
snow: |
7.06
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BIOTIC
CONDITIONS
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| Rodents abundance evaluation: |
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Breeding conditions:
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This year was much earlier in terms of phenology than 2004. Shorebirds bred more successfully, however, cold rainy weather throughout July may well have adversely affected fledging success - we have no fledging data to assess this directly. Mayfield estimate of hatch success in shorebirds was 0.21.
The most interesting finding this year was that a Snow Goose colony has been recently established in the coastal portion of our study plot. We noted many nest cups last year, but no Snow Geese, and very few Canada Geese bred here in 2004. This small colony of perhaps 500 nests was not present in 1994 when the area was visited by my colleagues. In 2005, I conducted aerial surveys of the coast of Coats Island and found that breeding snow geese now occupy the coastal tundra on the entire northern portion of the island. Aerial surveys of this portion of the island in the 1980's found no geese nesting there.
It is not surprising that new Snow Goose colonies are being established as the populations expand, however, direct evidence of these new colonies is rare.
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Rodent dynamics:
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| Coats Island has no lemmings or voles of any kind.
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Rodent species recorded:
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Summary
of fauna studies: |
| We monitored the nests of shorebirds for success, and to a lesser extent, followed the nests of other birds such as gulls, jaegers and geese. This was the second year of an ongoing study at Coats Island to document the breeding ecology of the shorebirds. This work is the basis of a PhD thesis (Paul Smith).
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