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by
Brian Dalzall

I consider myself one of the luckiest birdwatchers in New Brunswick, because every year about this time, I'm treated to a real honest to goodness wildlife spectacle of global significance right on my doorstep.

About the middle of February, the first brant begin to arrive along the shore, perhaps from wintering grounds in the mid-Atlantic states, but more than likely from nearby Cow Passage at White Head Island.

It is here that a small number began to overwinter in the late 1950s, attracted perhaps by the return of eelgrass, their favourite food. Now, some 40 years later, from 500-1000 can be found there each year in early winter.

For reasons known only to the brant, conditions are not suitable for them here at Bancroft Point during the winter, although for all intents and purposes, and to my eyes, it appears identical to Cow Passage.

Within a month of showing up this year, they went from a handful of birds to thousands, thusly: Feb. 7 - 10; Feb. 14 - 50; Feb. 18 - 350; Feb. 19 - 800; Feb. 25 - 1200; Mar. 3 - 1500 (am) 2000 (pm); Mar. 5 - 3500.

I've even got in the habit of leaving a north-facing window half open, even on the coldest days, just to hear them as they swirl about in their thousands, seemingly disturbed by the slightest of events.

They seem to be able to stay still no longer than 10 minutes, then its up and about for a couple of minutes, only to settle right back where they came from. Usually the culprit is a bald eagle, but not always.

I've noticed they can't tell the difference between a bald eagle and an airplane. You would think the closer it got, they could see the difference, but it doesn't seem to matter whether its a mile away or right overhead.

It does make a difference how high the airplane is. Generally over 2500 feet they don't seem to get too upset, but anything below that and within two miles, they are off like someone shot a cannon over their heads.

For the month of March, numbers will remain in the low thousands here, then start to drop off, as the birds either head for their high arctic nesting grounds, or other staging areas at Maces Bay and Tabusintac.

Strangely, there seems to be two distinct movements of brant through Grand Manan each spring. One fattens up on eelgrass and sea lettuce off Bancroft Point and Castalia Marsh, the second at Grand Harbour.

The two flocks seem to be mutually exclusive, but perhaps not. All I know is there are no brant in Grand Harbour until mid to late March, and numbers peak there in May, long after the brant have left Bancroft Point.

They are strange critters, so entirely dependent on eelgrass that they almost went extinct after a blight struck the eelgrass along the entire east coast of North America in 1931. They starved to death in the thousands.

It was many years before the eelgrass recovered, almost 50 in some cases, and it never attained its former status, apparently having lost ground to other forms of marine seaweeds and algae.

From research I have done, it appears the number of brant at Grand Manan each spring (I estimate 10,000 over three months) is significantly higher than those found here in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Simeon F. Cheney, who lived on nearby Nantucket Island in the late 1800s, estimated numbers there only in the low hundreds. For instance, the largest flock he ever saw there was about 500, and that was 25 November, 1887.

After the big eelgrass blight in 1931, it was still possible to find 250 a day at Kent Island in late May of 1935. Just two years later, 3000 were estimated in Three Islands Harbour on 11 April 1937.

Their main wintering grounds then, as now, are in the salt and brackish waters of the bays of Virginia and North Carolina, where they were found by the thousands and tens of thousands, according to T. Gilbert Pearson.

Writing in "The Birds of America" published in 1917, he had the following to say about the methods then used to slaughter brant:

"When the weather is fair Brants gather in very large companies to feed on the eel-grass growing in the shallow water of the shoals, or at high tide to drift a chattering host upon the bosum of the slow-heaving sound.

When strong winds blow, these large @rafts' are broken up and small companies of, from two to a dozen fly about seeking companionship. It is then that the gunners get in their deadly work.

In a small blind erected on four posts standing on the shoal, often three or four miles from land, the hunters take their stand. Anchored in the water about them are from 50 to 100 wooden decoys representing ducks and brant.

It is to these dummy sirens that the small flocks of Brant come; they @draw to the idols,' the local gunners say. They are awkward, slow-flying birds and poor indeed is the marksman who cannot make a good score with a shotgun under such conditions."

Fortunately, brant hunting was banned shortly after 1931 and has continued to this day. Unless another disaster befalls the eelgrass beds, I will continue to eagerly anticipate their annual spring sojourns.