Today marks the beginning of my first field season studying arctic nesting shorebirds in Churchill, Manitoba. Early this morning I left the sweltering heat of Peterborough, Ontario and traveled to latitude 58 degrees north to find...snow. As I sit looking out over the seemingly endless subarctic terrain that surrounds me, temperamental spurts of snow flurries pass by my window. I feel like I have been thrown back into the month of March and as crazy as it may sound, this excites me! It holds the promise of shorebirds yet to arrive, vibrant wildflowers still wrapped in winter dormancy, and lets me know I've arrived just in time to experience the brief yet extraordinarily beautiful arctic summer.
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| The view as we touched down on the Churchill airstrip. |
For the next two months I will be living at and working from the Churchill Northern Studies Centre which lies about 13 km outside of Churchill. The duration of my time spent here will be focused on studying the breeding site fidelity and return rates of Dunlin (Calidris alpine hudsonia) by capturing, banding, and resighting as many adults and chicks as possible. In layman's terms this basically means I will be entertaining myself by hunting for nests, exploring the area, playing with birds, and having amazing wildlife encounters.
Churchill exhibits a very interesting geographical phenomenon. As previously mentioned it lies at 58 degrees N, a latitude that generally wouldn't create arctic conditions in a coastal environment. Juneau, AK, for example, lies at the same latitude along the pacific coastline and is classified as temperate rainforest. Churchill, however, is a subarctic zone that harbors three distinct biomes: boreal, arctic, and marine. Situated along the shoreline of the Hudson Bay, it is heavily influenced by strong North winds and the yearly freeze-up of the shallow bay waters.
