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10 days ago I stood on the shores of the Atlantic and watched greater yellowlegs, lesser yellowlegs, peep, and shovelers all heading north together. The shovelers were red shovellers and the Atlantic was the south Atlantic in Argentina some 8000 miles south of here. Apparently a lot of birds need to still fly a long way to get near the breeding grounds this year. One major decline we might see this spring migration is a lack of chimney swifts and some rather late fall migrants that were hard hit by a couple of October hurricanes last year. Thousands of swifts and late season warblers were blown to Nova Scotia and NE Canada and many dozens of these birds showed up in southern England, Madeira, and other islands off Africa and western Europe. Certainly thousands, probably tens of thousands of these birds (maybe millions?) were lost over the Atlantic and it will be very interesting to see if these declines can be detected by the Breeding Bird Surveys run in a couple of weeks. Bob Russell, Dakota County --part1_362.4ef6a80.319d4e35_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable <HTML><FONT FACE=3Darial,helvetica><HTML><FONT SIZE=3D2 PTSIZE=3D10 FAMILY= =3D"SANSSERIF" FACE=3D"Arial" LANG=3D"0">10 days ago I stood on the shores o= f the Atlantic and watched greater yellowlegs, lesser yellowlegs, peep, and=20= shovelers all heading north together. The shovelers were red shoveller= s and the Atlantic was the south Atlantic in Argentina some 8000 miles south= of here. Apparently a lot of birds need to still fly a long way to ge= t near the breeding grounds this year. <BR> <BR> One major decline we might see this spring migration is a lack of chimney sw= ifts and some rather late fall migrants that were hard hit by a couple of Oc= tober hurricanes last year. Thousands of swifts and late season warble= rs were blown to Nova Scotia and NE Canada and many dozens of these birds sh= owed up in southern England, Madeira, and other islands off Africa and weste= rn Europe. Certainly thousands, probably tens of thousands of these bi= rds (maybe millions?) were lost over the Atlantic and it will be very intere= sting to see if these declines can be detected by the Breeding Bird Surveys=20= run in a couple of weeks. Bob Russell, Dakota County</FONT></HTML> --part1_362.4ef6a80.319d4e35_boundary--
