Our Other Bird Photo Galleries
Piping Plover
Killdeer
American Avocet
Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser Yellowlegs
Solitary Sandpiper
Willet
Spotted Sandpiper
Upland Sandpiper
Long-billed Curlew
Marbled Godwit
Least Sandpiper
Short-billed Dowitcher
Common Snipe
Wilson's Phalarope
Black-bellied Plover
American Golden Plover
Hudsonian Godwit
Ruddy Turnstone
Red Knot
Sanderlings
Semipalmated Sandpiper
White-rumped Sandpiper
Baird's Sandpiper
Pectoral Sandpiper
Dunlin
Stilt Sandpiper
Buff-breasted Sandpiper
Long-billed Dowitcher
Red-necked Phalarope
Snowy Plover
Mountain Plover
Black-necked Stilt
Western Sandpiper
Counts of over 50,000 Sanderlings, or about 25-50% of their hemispheric population, have been counted in a single day in and around Chaplin Lake. This area is also one of the top four breeding areas in Saskatchewan for the Piping Plover, an endangered species whose principal breeding area is in Saskatchewan.
The Chaplin area fulfills the needs of many North American shorebirds. The area is a bounty of delight for the birds as they banquet on shore flies, brine shrimp, midge larval, and seeds from the salty shores and shallow waters. They intermingle their eating with rest, made easier by the scarcity of predators.The majority of birds that stop in Chaplin stop only briefly before continuing to their nesting grounds in the Arctic. This stop of just a few weeks is very necessary for the birds. They can double their weight during this time. In a pattern repeated for thousands of years, shorebirds link their winter stations in South America with the spring and summer nesting in Canada's prairies and high Arctic. During their passage with some birds flying more than 70 hours and over 5000 kms(3100 miles) between stops, it is critical their needs be met.