ST. THOMAS - St. Croix resident and bird monitor Lisa Yntema was looking at a satellite tracking map of a highly migratory shorebird when she noticed it had stopped in the Virgin Islands.

"I looked and I said, 'That Whimbrel went to St. Croix!'" she said.

The bird, a Whimbrel named Hope, is part of a joint research project between the Nature Conservancy and the Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William and Mary in Virginia.

Hope - a small, brown speckled bird with a long, thin, curved beak - is one of seven Whimbrels equipped with a state-of-the-art, 9.5 gram satellite transmitter. Her long-range migration can be tracked online, and each of her stops are dated.

According to the Center for Conservation Biology's website, Hope arrived at Great Pond on St. Croix on Wednesday.

On Friday, when Yntema first saw the tracking map, she went out with her friend Sheelagh Fromer to look for Hope.

"I saw her with my own eyes," Yntema said.

Hope has a bright green flag on her leg that identifies her. Yntema said she has seen Whimbrels on St. Croix before, but never knew whether it was the same bird who lived there or different birds just passing through. Hope is easily identifiable, so Yntema is looking forward to keeping her eye on the bird to see what she does.

"I wouldn't be surprised if she spent the winter here," Yntema said.

Whimbrels are shorebirds who live in wetland areas. Hope is currently at the Great Pond wetland, where many birds make their homes. It is also the site of the endangered least tern's breeding ground.

Yntema said the area has been designated an "Important Bird Area" by BirdLife International.

Because of construction going on in the Great Pond area for Golden Resorts, a fence has been put up that makes beach access difficult, so some people are driving on the mud flats on the outer edges of the wetland to get close to the beach. Yntema said this is bad for the birds who live in the area because it disturbs their habitat.

The first Whimbrel tracked by the Center for Conservation Biology in the spring of 2008 was Winnie. Winnie stunned the world by recording a non-stop, 3,200-mile flight that took 146 hours.

According to the center's website, it was the first time the species' wide ranging migration route was documented. Winnie traveled from Virginia to the MacKenzie River near Alaska and back.

In the fall of that year, a second bird was tracked heading south for the winter. Willy made it to the Caribbean island Mayaguana, where he waited out four hurricanes and tropical storms before continuing to Guyana - a 2,900-mile trip.

This spring, five more Whimbrels were tagged, including Hope.

Hope left Virginia, flew up to the Arctic Circle to breed this summer and is now heading south for the winter. She is 14 ounces, 17.5 inches from the tip of her bill to her tail and has a 32-inch wingspan.

Yntema said Hope has had a long journey and needs time to recover and feed.

"She is easily scared. People shouldn't really try to approach her," Yntema said. "She's very flighty."

Anyone interested in tracking Hope's journey can visit www.ccb-wm.org/programs/migration/Whimbrel.

- Contact reporter Aldeth Lewin at 774-8772 ext. 311 or e-mail alewin@dailynews.vi.