Altamaha Riverkeeper News

By Tim Keyes, Georgia DNR WRD non-game biologist

The Altamaha River Delta hosts one of the largest group of wintering Longe-billed Curlew on the Atlantic Coast. While this is only around 12-15 birds, this still ranks high for the largest shorebird species in North America. While the vast majority of curlew winter in Mexico, it was once estimated that several thousand Longbilled Curlew wintered on the Atlantic coast. This number has dropped dramatically and now may only be 100 or so, leading biologists at the Smithsonian Institute to initiate a satellite tagging project for Long-billed Curlew on the coast of Texas and the southeastern US. This led them to Georgia, where we were able to assist the Smithsonian in the capture of a male Long-billed Curlew, to which they affixed a satellite transmitter. To date, this bird has not left the Altamaha delta, ranging from Egg Island, Egg Island Bar, Wolf Island and Wolf Island Bar. Join in the tracking of this bird on-line and see where it ends up nesting. (http:// www.migratoryconnectivityproject.org/livetracks/)