James Bay Islands Bird Survey 1993: Trodely Island

(The full report can be found in Ontario Birds Volume 14, Number 1, April 1996).

The James Bay Islands Bird Survey continued in 1993 with a visit to Trodely Island, a small island in southeast James Bay. Darrell Parsons and I chartered a Cessna 182 floatplane in Moosonee and were flown to Trodely Island on 19 June, and picked up ten days later, after all too frequent weather delays.

The island measures about 8 by 3 km. and is basically an immense drift of sand with a flat interior plateau, sparsely vegetated with lichen and dwarf birch, and ringed with sandy beaches and a band of white spruce. Our surveys consisted of walking several sections of the island each day, counting birds, looking for evidence of breeding, and keeping note of other species we encountered, such as butterflies, mammals, and molluscs. Direct counting of various life-forms was accomplished using transects that criss-crossed the interior and coastline of Trodely Island. Point Count and Line Transect sampling techniques were unsuccessful due to the small size of the island and the difficulty in finding large homogeneous habitats. Investigations will continue to determine the best method to survey these islands. Bad weather delayed the bushplane's arrival to June 29. As a result, we missed our flights from Moosonee back to Sarnia.

A phenomenal 77 species were observed, very impressive for such a small island located far from the mainland. Highlights of the survey included breeding Common Eiders (probably the furthest south and earliest James/Hudson Bay record), Black Guillemots, a pair of Gray Catbirds, Brown Thrasher, first James Bay islands records for Black-throated Green Warbler, Cape May Warbler, Pine Siskin, Red-breasted Nuthatch, and Olive-sided Flycatcher. These latter records highlight how little has been done in the region, as these species should be encountered here, but had not been recorded before. Beluga Whales, Ringed and Bearded Seals, and an old Polar Bear den (possibly the furthest south den ever found) were noted.

On June 24, we observed 47 species of birds, a world record daily high for NWT. This tally was submitted to the American Birding Association's Big Day Record.