Hope the Whimbrel Returns to Virginia's Eastern Shore, USA

Center for Conservation Biology, College of William and Mary – Virginia Commonwealth University

and

 The Nature Conservancy, Virginia Chapter

Hope at Great Pond, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands on 9 January 2012. Photo by Lisa Yntema.

5 April 2012. (Williamsburg, VA)---Hope, a Whimbrel carrying a satellite transmitter, has returned to the Eastern Shore of Virginia after spending the winter on St. Croix in the U.S. Virginia Islands. The bird has been tracked by a team of researchers through her migratory travels since she was captured on Box Tree Creek in Northampton County, Virginia on 19 May 2009. Since that time she has traveled more than 44,100 miles (71,000 kilometres) back and forth 3 times between breeding grounds on the Mackenzie River in western Canada and Great Pond Important Bird Area on St. Croix. She likely left Great Pond on the evening of April 1st and arrived in Virginia on the morning of April 4^th, covering the 1600 miles (2575 km) in approximately 60 hours. She had been wintering on Great Pond since 14 September 2011.

Hope has taught the research community a great deal about the migratory pathways and habits of Whimbrels. She has made tremendous nonstop flights, moved great distances out over the open Atlantic, confronted storms while at sea, navigated with precision to stopover sites and shown high fidelity to her breeding site, her wintering site, and several staging areas. Hope is one of more than a dozen birds that have been tracked in a collaborative effort between The Center for Conservation Biology, The Nature Conservancy and other partners designed to discover migratory routes that connect breeding and winter areas and to identify en route migratory staging areas that are critical to the conservation of this declining species.

This map shows Hope's migration routes from Spring 2009 when she was fitted with the satellite transmitter to Spring 2012

Updated tracking maps may be viewed online

http://www.ccb-wm.org/programs/migration/Whimbrel/whimbrel.htm

http://www.seaturtle.org/tracking/?project_id=369

MEDIA CONTACTS

Dr. Bryan D. Watts, Director, Center for Conservation Biology, College of William and Mary, Virginia Commonwealth University bdwatt@wm.edu (757) 221-2247 office, (757) 272-4492 cell

Fletcher M. Smith, Biologist, Center for Conservation Biology, College of William and Mary, Virginia Commonwealth University fmsmit@wm.edu (757) 221-1617 office, (757) 678-6915                         

Barry Truitt, Chief Conservation Scientist, The Nature Conservancy, Virginia Coast Reserve Program, btruitt@tnc.org (757) 442-3049