From: THE BIRDING COMMUNITY E-BULLETIN May 2011
WHIMBREL TRAVELS: “HOPE”
Also on the subject of shorebirds and their migrations, it may be particularly instructive to follow the travels of just a single Whimbrel, a bird nicknamed “Hope.”
Hope is a female Whimbrel that was captured in Virginia on the southern Delmarva Peninsula on 19 May 2009. There, she was banded and fitted with a satellite transmitter. Since then, Hope has logged more than 21,000 miles (33,000 kilometers), flying between a remote Canadian breeding territory on the MacKenzie River (an IBA site, by the way) near Alaska and a comfortable winter territory on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands!
Last month, on 8 April, Hope returned to Virginia following a 75-hour, 1,850-mile (2,900 kilometer) flight over the Atlantic Ocean. For more details and to see a fascinating route map showing Hope’s journeys, see here:
http:www.fws.gov/northeast/news/2011/041411.html
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