(Photo: courtesy of Nature Conservancy of Canada)
The Sandpiper festival wasn’t held this year because of the pandemic, but there is still an opportunity to view the phenomenon at Johnson’s Mills.
Spokesperson for Nature Conservancy of Canada Andrew Holland says the sandpipers are as small as a strawberry when they arrive, “These birds are exhausted. They fly from the Arctic and come from the Bay of Fundy to these mudflats to rest and eat and fatten up to double their body weight. This allows them to have a successful migration to South America. These little wee shorebirds, they weigh about the size of a Halloween sized mini chocolate bar or a strawberry. What they do is feed on the mudflats, mud shrimp and invertebrates.”
Holland says tens of thousands of sandpipers use the Bay of Fundy as their rest stop each year.
Visitors are invited to view the birds, but Holland says you should stay off the mud flats to help protect them, “The Nature Conservancy of Canada owns and manages just over five kilometres of beach in that location. It is important for people to respectfully give the birds their distance. This is a rest stop for around three weeks for them. What we try to do is inform visitors to come to the viewing platform and see the birds there, but avoid going in the beach area.”
The building at Johnson’s Mills has been closed this year, but staff are on site and can share information with people on what birds are coming through the region, how many, and why it is such a crucial area for their survival.
(Photo: courtesy of Nature Conservancy of Canada)
