Whimbrel
Credit: James H. Robinson

Recently I received a note about a Whimbrel named Hope.

Hope is equipped with a satellite transmitter and is on a remarkable journey. She was fitted with a transmitter on Virginia's Delmarva Peninsula in the spring. From there she flew north and spent the summer in or near the Boreal regions of Quebec, Ontario and the Northwest Territories where she presumably nested before heading south again. She migrated south through Maine in August and out over the Atlantic Ocean and is now in the Caribbean. Hope has traveled over 8,000 miles since late May.

Hope is one of several birds fitted with state-of-the-art satellite transmitters in a collaborative effort by the Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William and Mary - Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia Chapter of the Nature Conservancy. Check out the maps showing the individual tracks of each bird to see both the amazing distance that they fly and how important the Boreal is to Whimbrels in migration and for breeding. Updated tracking maps may be viewed on line at http://www.ccb-wm.org/programs/migration/Whimbrel/whimbrel.htm.

The green line on the map above represents Hope's path since last spring.