BIRDS OF THE’PAST 
     
    
   
   
    
     PART TWO: WATER BIRDS 
     
    
   
   
    
     BY GEOFF HOGAN 
     
    
   
   
    
     As Jacques Cartier travelled through the Gulf of St. Lawrence he 
     
     likely encountered two unusual species of aquatic birds, the Great Auk 
     
     and the Labrador Duck. The Great Auk, a large flightless relative of 
     
     puffins and murres, and the Labrador Duck, a stocky seaduck with a 
     
     bill adapted for specialized feeding, are now both extinct. No records 
     
     exist to confirm their presence on PEI, although both travelled widely 
     
     throughout our region. They became extinct relatively early when few 
     
     people, if any, were keeping bird records on the Island. Indeed, many 
     
     people were concerned primarily with their own survival. 
     
    

    
     The Great Auk resembled a penguin and dove for fish in the same 
     
     manner. Although they were abundant in the early years, their nesting 
     
     colonies were restricted to a few rocky islands of Newfoundland and 
     
     further north. Superb swimmers, it is conceivable that some made their 
     
     way to our shores, as puffins and murres occasionally do today. Bones 
     
     of the Great Auk have been found on the Magdalen Islands and Cape 
     
     Breton. Unfortunately, their flightlessness and colonial nesting habit 
     
     made them highly vulnerable at their breeding colonies and they were 
     
     exploited relentlessly for food and fish bait by passing ships and 
     
     fishermen. In time, the unregulated killing wiped them out forever. 
     
    

    
     The last known pair were killed on a small island off Iceland in 1844. 
     
    

    
     The Labrador Duck is a species about which relatively little was 
     
     ever known. Never an abundant bird, its breeding grounds were believed 
     
     to be in Labrador although it travelled as far as New England in win— 
     
     ter. At times, it showed a preference for sandy, coastal shoals and 
     
     PEI may have provided attractive habitat, but we have no evidence 
     
     from that period to confirm its occurence here. The birds were some—. 
     
     times shot for markets in the cities although widespread "egging" 
     
    

    
     (the practice of taking wild birds' eggs for market) is thought to 
     
     have been the cause for its eventual extinction in 1878. 
     
    

    
     ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION 
     
    

    
     The rarest bird that could possibly be 
     
     seen on PEI today was perhaps one of 
     
     our most abundant. The Eskimo Curlew 
     
     is one of the rarest birds in the 
     
     world yet according to MacSwain (1908), 
     
     it was the common curlew of the Island. 
     
     The Eskimo Curlew is a small shorebird 
     
     with a long downward curved bill, 
     
     lar to the larger and still common 
     
     Whimbrel or Hudsonian Curlew. Each 
     
     year, in late summer, Eskimo Curlews 
     
     migrated by the millions to the east 
     
     coast from across the Arctic. 
     
     stayed for several weeks fattening on 
     
     berries growing along the coast. The 
     
     stored energy was vital in order to 
     
     complete the arduous flight across the 
     
    
   
   
    
     spend the winter. The non—stop flight 
     
     took 2 to 3 days. In spring, they re- 
     
     turned to the Arctic breeding grounds 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     PILEATED WOODPECKER 
     
    
   
   
    
     simi- 
     
    
   
   
    
     Here they 
     
    
   
   
    
     ocean to South America where they would 
     
    
   
   
    
     I