
Breeding Ground Surveys 
MARITIME PROVINCES 
Weather and Water Conditions 
With the exception of Prince Edward Island, the weather 
conditions, so far this season, have been favorable for nesting and 
rearing waterfowl, Prince Edward Island had an unusually heavy snow- 
fall on May 2nd and 3rd (10 inches was recorded at Charlottetown). 
Night temperatures on the Island during May were below normal. Snow 
patches were still present along the shorelines of some ponds and lakes 
on Prince Edward Island as late as May 28th, 
Total precipitation for the months of March, April, May 
and June was normal for New Brunswick and below normal for Nova 
Scotia and Prince Edward Island (May was an extremely dry month in 
Nova Scotia). The May 3lst water level of the St. John River at Fredericton, 
New Brunswick was 7 and 10 feet lower, respectively, than the 1956 and 
1957 levels. | 
Breeding Population Data 
The spring migration of many of the waterfowl species was 
still underway during the aerial sprisig survey of Prince Edward Island 
(Table 1). This was apparently caused by the heavy snowstorn in early 
May which blocked northward migration for at least a week. Waterfowl 
arriving from the south piled up along the east coast of New Brunswick, 
the north coast of Nova Scotia, and in Prince Edward Island. Because of 
this pause in the migration, the results of the 1957 spring survey of Prince 
Edward Island are not suitable for comparison with that of 1956, A com- 
parison of the counts obtained on the 1956 and 1957 aerial surveys of Nova 
Scotia and New Brunswick indicate that no appreciable change in the breed- 
ing popwiations of black duck, pintail, green-winged teal and blue-winged 
teal have occurred and that there is a decrease in the numbers of goldeneye 
and ringnecked duck. 
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