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NATURAL HISTORW SOCIETY OF PEI

1977 EXECUTIVE

PAST PRESIDENT: ELEANOR LOWE CHARLOTTETOWN 'PRESIDENT: DIANE GRIFFIN NEW HAVEN VICE-PRESIDENT: WINSTON JOHNSTON CHARLOTTETOWN SECRETARY - TREASURER: MARGARET MALLETT CHARLOTTETOWN fASSISTANT- SECRETARY TREASURER: HELEN DUFFY CHARLOTTETOWN YDIRECTORS: KATHERINE CLOUGH 8 BRUCE MACLAREN CHARLOTTETOWN CHARLOTTETOWN NEWSLETTER EDITOR: KATHY MARTIN WINSLOE

PROVINCIAL BIRD IS ON THE ROAD

A bill to declare the Bluejay as the Provincial Avian Emblem will be presented during the current sitting of the legislature. During Environment Week, I976,

a province-wide election was sponsored by the Natural History Societytto find

the popular choice. A brief from the Natural History Society was later presented to Environment Minister, Gilbert R. Clements, to indicate the Bluejay had been

a landslide winner.

FEEDBACK ON THE BLACK BIRD ISSUE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY NEWSLETTER

Bruce MacLaren sent the following comments:

I'My personal knowledge of the red-winged Blackbird goes back to at least l92h and my brother is reasonably sure that members of our family observed them at least as far back as l9l7. One or possibley two pairs, would be seen at what is now Dewar's Mill in Brudenell. The sightings were rare because any time a bird was seen the event wOuld be reported at home.”

On the Upland Sandpiper:

“The Upland Sandpiper, better known to me as Field Plover has certainly appeared in migration flights in August. I have seen flocks of a dozen and up to 30 or ho in the North Shore area betWeen Cable Head and Priest Pond, in particular Monticello and Big Pond. I wish I could date these sightings accurately but unfortunatley i did not recordlthan. It would be in the period from l955 to l96h and I am sure it was August. On one occassion 'when I saw a flotk at Monticello, l talkedcto the owner of the farm and he told me that he had never seen them later than the

last week in August. Mv wife told me that in her school days.

she and her brother walked' across the fields to Pisquid school from her home in Fanningbrook. They would often flush groups of plover on the way to or frOm school and from her description

there seems little doubt that these were the birds now called Upland Sandpiper. The only other one that it could be would be the Black-