After “Winnie” the whimbrel departed Virginia’s Eastern Shore in June carrying a tiny satellite transmitter, the big shorebird presented researchers with even bigger surprises. Winnie flew nonstop —  3,200 miles in 146 hours — to the MacKenzie River near the Alaska-Canada border.

Unfortunately, migration is a treacherous enterprise. Biologists believe Winnie either died or lost her transmitter along the shores of Lake Superior in August. However, “Willie,” a second whimbrel tagged on the Eastern Shore, continues to provide valuable information about these impressive transcontinental fliers.

Nature.org continued our conversation with the Conservancy’s Barry Truitt for an update on what we’re learning about shorebirds — and how to conserve their habitat — from our research partnership with the Center for Conservation Biology. 

Nature.org: What appears to have happened to Winnie?

Barry Truitt: She either has died or the transmitter dropped off. We haven’t been able to verify which actually happened.
 

Nature.org: And this occurred at Lake Superior?

Truitt: Yes, at Minnesota Point outside Duluth.

The transmission is coming from some head-high scrub and poison ivy beyond the beach there. The people on the ground couldn’t find it, but they said the beach there was covered with coyote and red fox tracks, so we think that may explain what happened to Winnie.

She landed there after flying from Washington state and was probably tired, and then she succumbed to one of the many perils of migration.
 

Nature.org: That whole last leg of Winnie’s flight was another of her surprises, wasn’t it?

Truitt: Last fall a satellite-tagged whimbrel flew from Alaska to the Salton Sea in California and from there down to Colombia. That’s what we expect West Coast/Alaska subspecies birds to do.

But Winnie’s presence on the East Coast and the ease with which she flew cross-country raised the question that maybe it’s not so black and white. We expected Winnie to go south when she took off from Washington, but then she headed back inland and that’s when we figured she was on the way back to Virginia. But she didn’t make it.
 

Nature.org: Winnie spent some five weeks up on the North Slope of Alaska. Can we presume that she nested there along the Colville River?

Truitt: Presume is a good word. A lot of shorebirds — whimbrels and red knots specifically — once the eggs hatch, the female goes off and leaves the chicks with the male. Winnie was there long enough for all that to happen, but we don’t have any proof.
 

Nature.org: While Winnie was laying over in Washington, you captured another whimbrel, Willie. What was he doing on Virginia’s Eastern Shore in the middle of August?

Truitt: Willie was probably on his way back south after nesting in the Hudson Bay area. Evidence suggests that when these birds find staging areas with a lot of food during spring migration they sometimes use those same areas in the fall.

It’s unreal how many fiddler crabs we have here. I actually timed one whimbrel in early August — he stalked, caught, washed and ate five fiddler crabs in about 80 seconds.
 

Nature.org: And is Willie still free?

Truitt: Willie launched himself out over the Atlantic and ended up down in the Bahamas. He’s alive and well on Mayaguana Island, hanging out on the beach.

He survived Hanna and then Ike, which is pretty impressive. Ike was a category 3 hurricane when it hit the Bahamas.

Flocks of flamingoes down there reportedly move into the mangroves when hurricanes approach, and that’s probably what Willie did — he got off the beach and into the mangroves and just hunkered down.

We would assume he’s going to leave there and jump on down to South America, but just when you think you know enough to make an assumption, they do something else.
 

Nature.org: Is it too early to sum up any lessons learned?

Truitt: All this work — it’s just the first steps in developing conservation strategies for highly migratory species.

It’s also further proof that Virginia is a terminal spring staging area for whimbrels, and it’s a globally important site — particularly now that we know we’ve got Western birds here, too.

The first bird we caught blew our original assumptions out of the water. Within a year or two, there’s going to be 20-some tagged birds out there flying around, and we can really start to figure out what goes on with this species during migration.

Willie Makes a Leap

Update, September 30 — Willie lifted off from Mayaguana Island and left the Bahamas on September 26. The first position researchers received the following day showed Willie over the eastern Caribbean Sea, heading south towards the Venezuela coast. Willie traveled about 120 miles in just over five hours.

Transmissions today show that Willie has landed in South America on the coast of Guyana, where he is moving around the mouth of the Essequibo and Demerara rivers.
 

(September 2008)

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Barry Truitt/TNC (Winnie the whimbrel); Photo © Hal Brindley (Fiddler crabs on Hog Island, Virginia Coast Reserve); Map © Chris Bruce/TNC; Photo © TNC (Barry Truitt).