Southward Ho!

Cape Breton, Nova Scotia isn't exactly on the major migration route for northbound shorebirds, but we are dead center on for Southward Migration!  During migration, shorebirds occur primarily in shallowly flooded coastal or freshwater wetlands or on intertidal mud flats.

Well, guess where I paddled on Sunday?  Correct!  Intertidal mudflats, that even during high tide, they are so shallow, we had to proceed with caution so we wouldn't continually get grounded.  Canals interwoven among themselves.  Mud flats, forest, floating bogs, brackish backwaters, and open ocean across the dunes.

The birds were bountiful.  Semi-palmated Plovers, Semi-palmated Sandpipers, Short-billed Dowitchers, Black-bellied Plovers, Greater Yellowlegs, Sanderlings.........I'm sure I'm forgetting a few.  And of course, resident eagles and osprey made multiple appearances.

So busy feeding, we could drift right up to the sandbars/mudflats 

and watch without disturbing even the resting birds. 

It was peaceful, exciting, and relaxing all rolled into one.

I loved the way they'd all lift at once, 

then land again in the exact same spot.

I will add a photo of the Black-bellies with S.B.Dowitcher, although it isn't of the greatest quality.

But to compensate, here are a few additional images while I ponder the miracle of from whence they came - the arctic, circumpolar, the sub-arctic; and where they are going - it just blows me away!

Safe journey, my feathered friends!

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