AIRPORT BIRDING - CHARLOTTETOWN STYLE by Brian Dalzell 
     
    
   
   
    
     Often, while travelling to a province in Canada where I have never set 
     
     foot, the first glimpse I get of that province's birds is from inside an 
     
     airplane. Mind you, the birds are not all that spectacular, usually gulls, 
     
     starlings, crows and the like - but it is sufficient to get a bird listing 
     
     started for that province. Occasionally fortune will smile upon you, but 
     
     usually you are leaving the ground, not the other way around. 
     
    

    
     The best example I can recall involved 
     
     Dwayne Sabine, a New Brunswick birder whom 
     
     Islanders may remember did quite a lot of 
     
     fieldwork on P.E.I. over the past five 
     
     years, both for the Maritimes Breeding Birds 
     
     Atlas and the Department of Energy and 
     
     Forestry. On May 9, 1991 as Dwayne's plane 
     
     was taxiing for takeoff at the Fredericton 
     
     airport, he spied a Scissor-tailed 
     
     Flycatcher! Needless to say, by the time he 
     
     reached his destination and alerted local 
     
     bird watchers, it was gone. 
     
    

    
     Last August I was contracted by Transport Canada to conduct bird counts at 
     
     seven airports in Atlantic Canada in order to document bird patterns of 
     
     occurrence, and evaluate possible hazards to aircraft. I eventually 
     
     sub-contracted the work, but from late August until early October, I personally 
     
     surveyed three airports in New Brunswick as well as the Charlottetown airport. 
     
    

    
     I was especially interested in the latter location because I knew that Upland 
     
     Sandpipers regularly nested there. 
     
    

    
     I knew this because my father, who was an air traffic controller there in 
     
     1986, told me of seeing their courtship flights at dusk from the new control 
     
     tower. He had also talked to field maintenance crews who's descriptions of 
     
     young birds seen while mowing grass around the airport perimeter could only be 
     
     this species. Although this evidence was sufficient to include them in the 
     
     Breeding Bird Atlas as "probable breeders" at this location, I was unable to 
     
     gain access to the airport to confirm this report due to some kind of security 
     
     problems at the time. 
     
    

    
     My first survey at the airport was on August 26, 1992, and one of the 
     
     first bird sightings I noted was six Upland Sandpipers. A subsequent visit on 
     
     September 9th turned up four birds, but they were not seen again after that 
     
     date. It is obvious that my visits occurred right at the end of the breeding 
     
     season, just before the sandpipers left on their direct flight over the Atlantic 
     
     Ocean to South America, and eventually to the pampas of Argentina and Paraguay 
     
     where they winter. There is a possibility the surveys will be extended to cover 
     
     the breeding season this year, if so, the question of how many pairs breed at 
     
     this location, their arrival dates and breeding success may finally be answered 
     
     to my satisfaction. 
     
    

    
     The sandpipers seemed to prefer one corner of the airport where some 
     
     plowing had been carried out (but nothing planted) and it had come up in a mix 
     
     of clover and weeds with lots of bare ground in between. If so, it would appear 
     
     likely that no more than two pairs breed here. However, it must also be 
     
     remembered that Upland Sandpipers begin to migrate in early August, so the 
     
     numbers I saw there late in the month may have represented only a fraction of 
     
     those present earlier in the summer. At any rate, the Charlottetown Airport 
     
     probably represents the largest and most permanent population of these 
     
     sandpipers on Prince Edward Island. I suspect they also nest at the now 
     
     moth—balled Summerside airbase, but some other intrepid will have to undertake 
     
     to make that discovery.