a beach walk and pot luck hosted by Neil and Sally Bennett at their 
     
     Cousin’s Pond cottage on May 12th. There Jackie Waddell and Neil 
     
     led a discussion on the guardianship program and Neil led a walk on 
     
     the beach so that new guardians could see the birds in their 
     
     habitat. 
     
     The mini-census, conducted 
     
     A this year at the request of the U.S. 
     
     Fish and Wildlife Service, was 
     
     discussed by Dan McAskill. A 
     
     healthy debate was held on whether 
     
     the census should. be held on the 
     
     recommended dates of June 4th to 
     
     12th or earlier because of the 
     
     presence of gaspareau fishers on 
     
     certain beaches and the need to have 
     
     the nest locations identified to 
     
     help the Piping Plover recovery 
     
     effort. 
     
    

    
     During the June 4th to 16th period, Gerald MacDonald, 
     
     Madelaine Venart, Robert King, Rosemary Curley, Ross Bernard, Meike 
     
     Keunecke, Neil and Sally Bennett, Ben and Gilbert Hoteling, Rachel 
     
     Gautreau, Dale Small, Darren Wile, and I conducted censuses on all 
     
     the beaches but two outside the P.E.I. National Park known to have 
     
     been occupied during the Past decade. Parks and People staff (Beth 
     
     Grant, Linda Thomas, Paul Ayles, and Susan Shaw) conducted the 
     
     censuses in the Park itself as part of the P.E.I. National Park's 
     
     Piping Plover monitoring program. The Park's population was down 
     
     dramatically with 14 pairs nesting early in the year, the lowest 
     
     number since 1980 when monitoring started. This number dropped to 
     
     13 the week before the census but, by the census week, it had 
     
     returned to 14. This decrease was feared as the number of 
     
     fledglings (birds capable of flying) last year was very low (0.6 
     
     fledglings per nest) because of five storms and/or severely high 
     
     tides. Outside the Park, Piping Plover behaviour was erratic with 
     
     bird concentration increased in western Prince Edward Island and 
     
     reduced in the eastern region. 
     
    

    
     In total, the numbers were down from the 110 adults, 51 pairs 
     
     and 8 single birds in the 1991 census to the 60'adults, 26 pairs, 
     
     and 8 singles this year (* the sites not done had 2 pairs in 1991). 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     REDPOLL RAININGS by Evelyn Meader 
     
    
   
   
    
     Some winters we have been blessed with soaring flocks of 30 to 
     
     90 synchronized—flying Snow Buntings. This year we have had only 
     
     occasional bevies of dance-chorus buntings. The winter treat in 
     
     1993 and ’94 has been remarkable flocks of redpolls. Unlike their 
     
     Arctic colleagues, who give a swirl and soar in unison display 
     
     before or after feeding, the redpolls arrive in a loose cloudlike 
     
     gathering and sprinkle into our feeder tree one by one. I think of 
     
     their arriVal as an avian shower, an uncommon raining of Common 
     
     Redpolls. When startled they retreat in a ragged bunching to 
     
     nearby branches. 
     
    

    
     _4_