Lake Erie North Shore Watershed Plan - Niagara Peninsula ...

LAKE ERIE NORTH SHORE WATERSHED PLAN
Important Bird Areas
Important Bird Areas (IBA) are sites critical to the long-term viability of bird populations
and are priority areas for “the conservation of globally threatened, range restricted and
congregatory birds” (Bird Life International No Date). IBA areas are recognized as
having an occurrence of key bird species that are vulnerable to global extinction or
whose populations are otherwise irreplaceable.
There are two recognized IBA‟s in the Lake Erie North Shore study area; Point Abino
and Port Colborne’s breakwater and mainland. Point Abino, also a designated
provincially significant ANSI, PSW, old growth forest, significant woodland and a
Carolinian Canada signature site, boasts a diverse breeding community. Several rare
species of songbirds such as acadian flycatchers, hooded warblers and cerulean
warblers have been noted in the area. In addition, in a 1999 survey 73 breeding bird
species were observed (Bird Studies Canada No Date). During the spring and fall
migration, large concentrations of land birds commonly gather off the tip of the Point
Abino peninsula.
The Port Colborne IBA consists of colonies at two locations; on a breakwater
approximately one kilometer offshore, and a landfill inland on the east side of the
Welland Canal terminus. Common terns (breakwall colony) and ring-billed gulls (both
colonies) can be found nesting at these colonies. Bird Studies Canada noted that 1,311
pairs of common terns were recorded at the breakwall in 1987 and in 1990; an estimated
43,590 pairs of ring-bullied colonies were nesting on the mainland site along with
another 2,500 on the breakwater. In addition to the common terns and ring-billed gulls,
Bird Canada Studies recorded 175 pairs of nesting herring gulls and in 1997 a pair of
great-backed gulls was identified nesting there for the first time.
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