Author: Mark Yokoyama

Migratory Bird Festival Press

The Daily Herald, Sint Maarten, October 2013
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St. Martin’s Week, Saint Martin, October 2013
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SXM Fax Info, Saint Martin, October 2013
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St. Martin’s Week, Saint Martin, September 2013
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The Daily Herald, Sint Maarten, September 2013
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Le Pélican, Saint Martin, September 2013
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The Daily Herald, Sint Maarten, September 2013
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Today Newspaper, Sint Maarten, September 2013
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Bird Festival Survey

Thank you to everyone who completed the short survey about our Migratory Bird Festival. We had a lot of great feedback, as well as great suggestions for future events. This feedback is very important to us and we will be using it to make our next event even better. If you attended the Migratory Bird Festival and haven’t had a chance to complete the survey yet, it is super-short and you can access the survey here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RGTBKWQ

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Grand Case Canal Clean-up

Lots of wildlife depend on our salt ponds and wetland areas. There was a great clean-up this morning on the canal in Grand Case, the second of many events to help make my favorite town even better. Huge thanks to everyone who came by and helped out. We did a lot of cleaning along the canal as you can see. The place looks great! We also put up a temporary fence to try to catch garbage from the dumpster area before it goes in. Check out the before and after shots to see how much less trash there is in this area right now. Merci beaucoup à tous! If you want to know about future clean-up events, visit: https://www.facebook.com/fortheloveofgrandcase or Association Les Fruits de Mer.

Les Fruits de Mer in Action: Dog Island

If you are interested in the seabirds at Dog Island, you might enjoy this video from CaribinTV, with some nice footage from the same visit. http://www.caribintv.com/dog-island

The yellow subtitles make it look even more like lost footage from a Cousteau expedition. I think a couple of the figures I give for the number of nesting pairs of birds may be off in the subtitles, but you can find out more information about this IBA (Important Bird Area) here: http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/sitefactsheet.php?id=19783

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Migratory Bird Festival

Get ready for the biggest birding event of the year! We will be hosting a special event in honor of the birds that fly thousands of miles to visit St. Martin each fall. Part of International Migratory Bird Day, there will be plenty of activities and guided tours of the mangrove discovery trail at Étang de la Barrière right next to the Pinel ferry dock. Learn about our migratory bird visitors and the mangrove, beach and mudflat habitats that bring them here each year. More updates to follow, so “Join” (https://www.facebook.com/events/518285941588370/) the event and invite your friends! It is free and open to the public and there will be special activities for children, so bring the whole family. The event will be on Sunday, September 29th from 8-11am.

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Clean-up in Grand Case

The canal didn’t look as bad as it does sometimes, but we were still able to get a couple hundred pounds of trash from just the beach side of the bridge. That was just with a handful of folks in about an hour. If anyone wants to join in next time, there’s plenty of trash to clean up on the other side of the bridge!

Contact us to find out how to participate or visit For the Love of Grand Case on Facebook.