Record number of songbirds spotted over Eastern Quebec

The Tadoussac bird observatory on Quebec's North Shore witnessed one of the largest migratory patterns on record this week, after spotting "astronomical" numbers of warblers flying over the St. Lawrence River.

"This is perhaps one of the largest migratory flows the team has seen, perhaps even a historical one," the observatory wrote on its Facebook page on Monday.

​The day started out like any other for the director, Pascal Côté.

One member of his team, Laetitia Desbordes, was positioned on a dock in the small municipality of Les Bergeronnes, 20 kilometres east of Tadoussac, at dawn.

When they first spoke at 5:30 a.m, nothing was out of the ordinary. Desbordes had spotted a few warblers, but the heavy rain was making it hard for the birds to navigate.

The next update from Desbordes came at 6:30 a.m.

It simply read — "I need help."

"Between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. we counted more than 10,000 birds per 20 minutes," said Côté. "It was amazing."

By the end of the afternoon, the Tadoussac bird observatory reported having counted more than half-a-million warblers.

Côté said the observatory has been monitoring migrations for 10 years, and this is by far the largest number of warblers ever spotted in a day.

"They go so fast, and there are so many birds. You have to be there to feel it," he said. "It is really emotional to see."

Why so many?

The record-breaking numbers could be attributed to the warm weather over the past weeks, enticing the warblers to all travel at the same time, said Côté.  

Many of the warblers migrating from the south had been waiting for conditions that would ease their crossing of the St. Lawrence River.

They are unable to land on water and have to fly straight over the river that stretches up to 65 kilometres wide in some places.

The birds got their wish on Sunday night, with favourable wind conditions, said Côté.

"Probably millions of birds took flight that night to fly over the province," he said.

Marc-André Villard, a professor of avian ecology at l'Université du Québec à Rimouski, said the outbreak of spruce budworm on the North Shore can also explain the recent increase of the warbler population.

The worm is the main food source for many of the species of warblers and is allowing them to lay more eggs. Once hatched, there is also more than enough food to feed the chicks.

Birds crash into windows

Many residents in Eastern Quebec reported having found numerous dead warblers on the ground throughout the week.

Most of them died after crashing into windows. Côté said the main reason for the high number of accidents was strong winds.

"They had the wind in their face," he said, forcing them to fly closer to the ground and increasing their chance of running into buildings.