Short-billed Dowitcher Credit: Jeff Nadler

Bonaparte's Gull Credit: Glen Tepke

It's hard to believe, when many of us in the U.S. are in the middle of summer heat waves, but even now there are Canadian Boreal birds around us. Already the first wave of southbound shorebirds has arrived from their Canadian breeding grounds. Short-billed Dowitchers, Solitary Sandpipers, and Lesser Yellowlegs - species in which 80% or more of their global population breeds in the boreal forest - have been sighted across most of the eastern U.S.

Short-billed Dowitchers have been reported this July from at least 20 U.S. states, Lesser Yellowlegs from 14 states, and Solitary Sandpipers from at least 10 states. This includes reports from as far south as Texas, Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, and Tennessee - thousands of miles from the boreal forest wetlands where the birds breed.

In a few species, there are the occasional individuals that stay on the wintering grounds all summer either because they are not yet of breeding age or because they are not in the best of health. One-year-old Bonaparte's Gulls, for example, have been reported this July summering more than 500 miles from the Canadian boreal breeding range in Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island. Next summer they will be in Canada at this time, feeding young, since they normally breed by their second year.

Jeff Wells
Senior Scientist
Boreal Songbird Initiative