Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sunybcs!dmark
From: dmark@acsu.Buffalo.EDU (David Mark)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: NA Shorebirding hot-spots
Keywords: shorebirds, Iona Island, British Columbia
Message-ID: <15750@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
Date: 13 Jan 90 18:10:14 GMT
References: <2388@leah.Albany.Edu> <7162@tank.uchicago.edu>
Sender: nobody@acsu.Buffalo.EDU
Organization: SUNY at Buffalo
Lines: 26

One of the very best shorebirding spots in North America is at the Iona
Island sewage treatment plant in Richmond, British Columbia, just north
of Vancouver International Airport.  The plant is adjacent to huge tidal
flats of the delta of the Fraser River, and at high tide, from July to
September, many thousands of shorebirds flock into the outdoor settling
ponds of the treatment plant.  The fact that they can be inspected at
rather close range, and the fact that the site is in a metropolitan area
with over 1 million people, is probably responsible for the large number
of rarities.  I was one of 7 co-discoverers of the best, a Spoonbill
Sandpiper in July 1978.  Other notables include Ruff (almost annual), 
Rufous-necked Stint (at least 3-4 records), Snowy Plover, Curlew Sandpiper,
Long-toed Stint (1981), and Black-necked Stilt.  It is one of the best
two spots around Vancouver for Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, with a few
expected to be present in the last half of September and in early October.

My other two favorite shorebirding locations are Jamaica Bay NWR, Long Island,
New York (especially in August; my "lifer" Curlew Sandpiper was there) and
Bolivar Flats, a ferry-ride east of Galveston Texas (I had seven "lifers" there
in about an hour, March 1977: Oystercatcher; Snowy, Piping, and Wilson's
Plovers; Gull-billed, Little, and Sandwich Terns).

And on a world scale, the marvelous Esplanade at Cairns, Australia, where last
October I saw my first Australian example of Laughing Gull!

David Mark
dmark@cs.buffalo.edu