(Calidris
alpina pacifica)
(Studied by graduated PhD students Habitat use currently of interest to MSc student Rachel Gardiner; anti-predator behavior studied by Ron Ydenberg, Dick Dekker, and others)
We are engaged in research on overwintering Dunlin and other shorebirds
in suburban Vancouver.
The Fraser River Delta in suburban Vancouver supports the most northerly large overwintering population of Pacific Dunlin, and is the largest concentration of wintering shorebirds in Canada, including approximately 30,000 Pacific Dunlin, 5,000 Black-bellied Plover, and 400 killdeer. Work on this population was carried out by graduated doctoral students Pippa Shepherd, who radio-tracked individual birds during the winter, and doctoral student Lesley J. Evans Ogden, who focused on the dietary importance of agricultural land use by overwintering Dunlin.
Both studies have direct applications
to conservation and local foreshore and land use issues, particularly with
respect
to open-soil agricultural practices in coastal areas of suburban
Vancouver.
Post-doctoral fellow Yuri Zharikov modeled use of mudflats by dunlin with respect to physical and predator landscapes,
applicable to issues of Port of Metro Vancouver usage and potential expansion..
Left: Right:
Dunlin flock flying from mudflats to fields at high tide. Dunlin both roost
and feed in agricultural fields, and farmland provides important winter
habitat for this species.
List
of shorebird publications by CWE researchers
Dunlin
and Black bellied plover in a flooded farm field in Delta. Photo: L.J.
Evans Ogden
