Babies, Everywhere!*

*Be warned… this blog post contains pictures of extraordinary cuteness.

The title of this post says it all, but, by far, the best part about the field work in Churchill this past summer were all of the chicks (shorebird chicks) we found. In addition to the godwit chicks that we would band and place radio transmitters on for Nate’s study, we also found the chicks of most of the other shorebirds, and many other birds. For this post, I will let the pictures do the talking.

Short-billed Dowitcher - the very first chick we found of the summer, it gave us some hope that our godwits would hatch their eggs too.

Hudsonian Godwit chicks! They are quite cute, and fluffy, and they have ridiculously big feet. When godwit nests hatched, we would band chicks and take data on them, and place a radio transmitter on one chick per brood to track them through their growth. The transmitters would fall off once contour feathers began to grow in.

Dunlin chick

Least Sandpiper - one of the cuter chicks that we found, and so tiny (as would be expected)

Stilt Sandpiper chick - sorry this shot is so oddly exposed, my camera was misbehaving this day, but you get the idea... it was cute

One day, we happened upon a hatched nest of American Golden Plovers - mom was nearby, and after taking some pictures, she gathered her babies and brooded them

Willow Ptarmigan chick - I particularly like the ptarmigan chick, because, as with the adults, the babies also have feathered feet!

Northern Shoveler - even at a few days old, the babies have already developed the big spatulate bill