St. John’s Bird Observatory marks 30 years and 1.7 million seabirds

Sitting inside a small cedar shake structure with panoramic views of the Bay of Fundy, Jim Wilson is in his happy place.

The lifelong bird expert and president of the St. John’s Naturalists Club is one of the co-founders of the Point Lepreau Bird Observatory, which was established in 1995 to monitor the migration of sea birds.

What started as a hobby soon turned into a busy pastime. Which Wilson calls “hilarious.”

“In the spring we have about 8,000 birds an hour from points north,” he said.

“And they’re moving on average about 60 kilometers per hour… and you’re trying to count and you want to be as accurate as possible because this is scientific research information that we’re collecting.”

That research is collected every spring and fall and shared with the Canadian Wildlife Service. Scientists can then use the data to better understand seabird and sea duck population trends, peak travel times, and environmental impacts.

Now, the club is marking 30 years of those efforts, looking back at more than one million birds – and counting.

“We’ve seen about 114 species of birds passing through that spot over the last 30 years,” Wilson said. The abundant species are the black scoter and the surf scoter. Overall, the group has counted about 1.7 million birds, he said.

The St. John Naturalists’ Club monitors the migration in a sampling method of four-hour blocks, counting 15 minutes at a time, followed by a 15-minute break. This is enough to see the abundance of birds arriving from the mouth of the Bay of Fundy.

But quick calculations aren’t always easy.

“If it’s a small swarm, you know, 1234567, then pretty soon you’ll be counting 10, 20, 30, 40. And pretty soon if you get a bigger number, you’ll be getting 100, about 200, 300 and maybe even 1000 at a time.”

Wilson said they now have volunteers who have been doing the work for years — and they’re good at it.

Bird is a bioindicator species

This includes Julie Bauer, volunteer-turned-program coordinator for the St. John Naturalists Club. He said that before the existence of the observatory, birds were difficult to study, which meant that much important information was missing.

,Birds are a bioindicator species,” he said. “This means they can tell us earlier… if the environment is changing.”

He said birds breed in the Arctic and when the climate there changes, their habitat and populations also change.

“The (North and South) poles are experiencing climate change much faster than the southern parts of the Earth. So basically changes in the Arctic will be seen sooner than here.”

Bauer said any changes would be visible in their populations “and it would be something we would be able to notice at the observatory”.

Wilson said their lookout location is also in a prime location on the north end where all the shorebirds and sea ducks winter, allowing them to capture the entire migration pattern.

“It’s the most prominent point of land, so birds coming north in the spring typically fly right over the point,” he said.

“At least in theory we have the potential to have almost all the seabirds and sea ducks that nest in the Arctic pass through us in the spring from year to year,” he said. “So we count down to the same dates in the same way with the same people in the same place every year.”

Oil tanker sparked idea for observatory

Wilson said the idea for the observatory came from a ‘what if’ scenario he imagined while out with his friend Dave McCurdy, who worked at the Point Lepreau Generating Station at the time.

While watching thousands of birds pass overhead one day in April, Wilson said he saw “an empty oil tanker coming down the bay from the Irving Refinery.”

“And we looked at each other after a while seeing all these countless birds going and we thought, what if there were an oil spill, accidental or small or big? What would be the impact on all these birds? We don’t know how many are going to go. We don’t really know for sure about the species.”

Wilson said that inspired the pair to begin monitoring birds from their car, which eventually evolved into the Point Lepreau Bird Observatory.

volunteers welcome

The St. John Naturalists Club has a few hundred volunteers, but with an older demographic, Bauer said they’re always looking to get more people involved.

“Currently, our core group of volunteers is aging and looking to retire from volunteering,” he said. “So we always welcome new volunteers and you can be anywhere in age, anywhere in experience level.”

Bauer said they usually have a workshop in the spring where new volunteers are paired with experienced bird counterers. He said it’s as much about community as it is about conservation.

,Not only is it important from a scientific perspective, but the observatory that brings all the volunteers and the community together is really extraordinary,” she said.

“It’s amazing to connect with other people who are interested in this and to be able to experience this beautiful migration that you get to see every spring. So it’s more than just data collection and science, it’s also really enriching and rewarding as a volunteer.”