August 21st, 2017

Let me go straight to the two main highlights of the day: an unexpected bird visitor, and an unexpected group of human visitors.

Early on during monitoring today, we received a very unexpected bird in the net. An adult male Red-naped Sapsucker. He “double-bagged” himself, did a loop around the border net line, and grabbed a ball of netting. Needless to say, it was one of the hardest extractions I have ever done. This bird is a first for the station this season, and it is a recaptured bird from spring 2015.

This species is very similar to Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers (see photo caption below for comparison details).

Red-naped Sapsucker. They can be distinguished from Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers by their red nape (i.e., back of head), hence the name. Photo by Constanza.

Red-naped Sapsucker. Adult males of this species have red on the throat extending through the black malar. They also have some red on their auriculars (i.e., cheeks), but it is not visible in this picture. Photo by Constanza.

We were all three very excited when we saw a group of visitors at around 10:30 am. During their stay, they got to see the banding process with a few birds, and did tours of the nets. On the second tour, there was a Rufous Hummingbird to extract. A bit further, near the last few nets of the round (near Homathko River), there was an unknown bird making alarm calls, and we soon understood why. A bear started grunting several times, and it sounded like he/she was about 10 m away. As we walked on, the bear slowly walked away.

Kyle explaining the banding process to a group of keen and fun visitors.

Letting the bird go after banding.

A little fun fact: It’s the first day of the season on which we observed both the Calliope and Rufous Hummingbirds.

A volunteer, Gwyn Case, just arrived! We look forward to meeting her. Until later!

Anna.

—

Total Banded	272
Species Banded	25
Total Recapped	42
Species Recapped	9
Species Recorded	89

—

Species	Banded	Recapped
Swainson’s Thrush	46	7
Common Yellowthroat	32	13
Song Sparrow	29	3
Lincoln’s Sparrow	25	5
Yellow Warbler	21	2
American Redstart	21	2
Northern Waterthrush	18	1
MacGillivray’s Warbler	14	1
Chipping Sparrow	10	0
Savannah Sparrow	9	0
Wilson’s Warbler	9	0
Dusky Flycatcher	6	0
Warbling Vireo	6	0
Cedar Waxwing	5	5
Black-capped Chickadee	3	1
Red-eyed Vireo	3	0
Vesper Sparrow	2	0
Pacific-slope Flycatcher	2	0
Willow Flycatcher	1	1
Hammond’s Flycatcher	1	0
Lazuli Bunting	1	0
Sharp-shinned Hawk	1	0
Townsend’s Warbler	1	0
Yellow-rumped Warbler	1	0
Cooper’s Hawk	1	0
Oregon Junco	1	0
Spotted Towhee	1	0
American Robin	1	0
Orange-crowned Warbler	1	0
Red-naped Sapsucker	0	1

 

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August 18th, 2017

Soon after opening the nets, Kyle told us about the biggest (fresh) bear poop he had ever seen. It’s a must see then. Ruler and camera in hand, I went to look for it.

30 cm ruler beside big bear poop.

Today was an average day for birds this season. Regular visitors that we don’t get in the nets include Mallards, Common Loons, Bald Eagles, Belted Kingfishers, American Crows (a regular, but not seen today), Common Ravens, and Red-winged Blackbirds, among a few others.

After monitoring, I went to play with Jaya.  I miss the family dog back home, and to be able to spend time with a joyful dog is great! I’ll miss Jaya, too.

Anna.

Jaya on a walk.

At Tatlayoko Lake

—

Total Banded	226
Species Banded	25
Total Recapped	33
Species Recapped	7
Species Recorded	84

—

Species	Banded	Recapped
Swainson’s Thrush	34	6
Common Yellowthroat	22	11
Song Sparrow	22	2
Lincoln’s Sparrow	21	3
American Redstart	20	2
Yellow Warbler	19	0
Northern Waterthrush	16	1
MacGillivray’s Warbler	11	1
Chipping Sparrow	9	0
Savannah Sparrow	8	0
Wilson’s Warbler	8	0
Dusky Flycatcher	6	0
Warbling Vireo	6	0
Cedar Waxwing	5	5
Red-eyed Vireo	3	0
Black-capped Chickadee	2	1
Vesper Sparrow	2	0
Willow Flycatcher	1	1
Hammond’s Flycatcher	1	0
Lazuli Bunting	1	0
Pacific-slope Flycatcher	1	0
Sharp-shinned Hawk	1	0
Townsend’s Warbler	1	0
Yellow-rumped Warbler	1	0
Cooper’s Hawk	1	0
Oregon Junco	1	0
Spotted Towhee	1	0
American Robin	1	0
Orange-crowned Warbler	1	0

 

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August 16th, 2017

All mornings this week range around 2-3°C (according to the forecast) except for today, which was at least 5°C warmer. The weather in itself was something to look forward to, in part because birding is all about fingers (and eyes). Aside from that, banding a Savannah Sparrow was nice after days of Song Sparrows and Lincoln’s Sparrows.

The first after-hatch-year male MacGillivray’s Warbler of the season showed up. Some black is starting to appear on the breast (see picture below), characteristic of males.

Yet another slow day for banding, but the number of species and individuals observed–being rather steady, or even increasing–tells a somewhat different story. Why? You’re probably right, at least partially.

Something I find interesting is that while Canada Geese are incredibly common back home in Ottawa, they are very scarce here. The birds around are sending me on a wild-goose chase, as far as banding’s concerned!

Until later.

Anna.

—

Total Banded	205
Species Banded	23
Total Recapped	27
Species Recapped	7
Species Recorded	82

—

Species	Banded	Recapped
Swainson’s Thrush	30	5
Common Yellowthroat	21	9
Song Sparrow	21	2
Lincoln’s Sparrow	20	3
Yellow Warbler	18	0
American Redstart	17	2
Northern Waterthrush	14	1
MacGillivray’s Warbler	10	1
Chipping Sparrow	9	0
Savannah Sparrow	8	0
Wilson’s Warbler	7	0
Cedar Waxwing	5	2
Dusky Flycatcher	5	0
Warbling Vireo	3	0
Red-eyed Vireo	3	0
Black-capped Chickadee	2	1
Vesper Sparrow	2	0
Willow Flycatcher	1	1
Hammond’s Flycatcher	1	0
Lazuli Bunting	1	0
Pacific-slope Flycatcher	1	0
Sharp-shinned Hawk	1	0
Townsend’s Warbler	1	0
Yellow-rumped Warbler	1	0
Cooper’s Hawk	1	0
Oregon Junco	1	0
Spotted Towhee	1	0

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August 15th, 2017 – Blog Post by Constanza

The “summer” in this valley of Canada is very special. 2°C in the morning, my fingers were frozen. Fortunately, I brought enough clothes for this special weather.

This day has been slower in the number of species banded than other days, maybe because of the fires. I really don’t know. However, we have seen many species flying around. Today, we saw four Great Blue Herons flying above the field. Apparently, it’s not common to see them flying in a group. So I’m lucky to have seen them together. We also saw a dozen Warbling Vireos; we had not seen so many together since the beginning of the season.

I finally saw the ducks that I have been hearing for three days. There were at least 15 Mallards and they were in a wetland very close to the nets. In the same place, there was a shorebird, the Spotted Sandpiper. He/she was very difficult to see, because he/she was really camouflaged. Andrew helped me see the bird. It looked very familiar, so I realised that it was a Playero Manchado (Actitis macularius). He/she breeds in spring and summer in North America, and then migrates to South America to avoid the winter. Among other places, they go to my lands, the North of Chile. Maybe we are doing a similar route, the Spotted Sandpiper and me—except I’m not breeding.

Today, Andrew and Gail left the ranch to go back to their home, so we shared a last dinner in the ranch. They cooked for us with the vegetables that Sally (our neighbor) gave us. Gail cooked a delicious apple crumble. We really enjoyed the time, the stories, and the teaching that they gave us. We are already missing them. I hope to meet them again in another adventure.

– Constanza.

Last dinner. 

—

Total Banded	197
Species Banded	23
Total Recapped	23
Species Recapped	7
Species Recorded	82

—

Species	Banded	Recapped
Swainson’s Thrush	29	4
Song Sparrow	20	2
Common Yellowthroat	19	6
Lincoln’s Sparrow	19	3
American Redstart	17	2
Yellow Warbler	17	0
Northern Waterthrush	14	1
MacGillivray’s Warbler	9	1
Chipping Sparrow	9	0
Savannah Sparrow	7	0
Wilson’s Warbler	7	0
Cedar Waxwing	5	2
Dusky Flycatcher	5	0
Warbling Vireo	3	0
Red-eyed Vireo	3	0
Black-capped Chickadee	2	1
Vesper Sparrow	2	0
Willow Flycatcher	1	1
Hammond’s Flycatcher	1	0
Lazuli Bunting	1	0
Pacific-slope Flycatcher	1	0
Sharp-shinned Hawk	1	0
Townsend’s Warbler	1	0
Yellow-rumped Warbler	1	0
Cooper’s Hawk	1	0
Oregon Junco	1	0
Spotted Towhee	1	0

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August 12th, 2017

The smoke has cleared substantially today, and the view is most stunning. We can see the clouds moving and the wrinkles of the mountains.  Every cloud has a silver lining.

A guest volunteer, Hana Kamea, enthusiastically joined us and witnessed some of the ongoing observed and banded birds, including Cedar Waxwing, Common Yellowthroat, Swainson’s Thrush, and Yellow Warbler.

We had a first-of-the-season for TLBO in the net, a Yellow-rumped Warbler (subspecies: Audubon)–also my first Audubon, as we only get Myrtles in Ontario. A “tournament” (i.e., flock) of five Chipping Sparrows were in net “14” during one of the net rounds, a relatively productive net so far. 14 Clark’s Nutcrackers and eight Ring-billed Gulls were observed, and these birds have been scarce until today.

Right before we wrapped things up, this bird showed up:

All photos by Gail Harcombe

All photos by Gail Harcombe

All photos by Gail Harcombe

Do you recognize the species? What’s going on with this bird?

After work, we joined Hana for a delicious lunch. We also got to meet her friendly dog Jaya. We headed home, and then Constanza and Kyle went for a swim at Tatlayoko Lake while I took a nap.

Photo by Gail Harcombe

Photo by Gail Harcombe

 

After 12 dry and sunny days, I think tomorrow’s rain will be rather refreshing.

Anna.

—

Species	Banded	Recapped
Swainson’s Thrush	24	3
Song Sparrow	19	2
Common Yellowthroat	15	3
American Redstart	15	0
Lincoln’s Sparrow	13	2
Yellow Warbler	13	0
Northern Waterthrush	12	1
MacGillivray’s Warbler	9	1
Chipping Sparrow	8	0
Savannah Sparrow	7	0
Cedar Waxwing	5	2
Wilson’s Warbler	5	0
Dusky Flycatcher	4	0
Warbling Vireo	3	0
Black-capped Chickadee	2	0
Red-eyed Vireo	2	0
Willow Flycatcher	1	1
Hammond’s Flycatcher	1	0
Lazuli Bunting	1	0
Pacific-slope Flycatcher	1	0
Sharp-shinned Hawk	1	0
Townsend’s Warbler	1	0
Vesper Sparrow	1	0
Yellow-rumped Warbler	1	0

—

Total Banded	164
Species Banded	20
Total Recapped	15
Species Recapped	5
Species Recorded	75

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August 9th, 2017

Another day in the books. Right as I started the 7:20 am net check, Kyle told me by radio, “There are fresh new bear scats (on the census route). Be vigilant, okay?”. Okay, definitely. I was then reminded of a weird event that occurred yesterday afternoon. I was inside the station with the door closed when I heard some steps, and then a loud munching sound as though someone was eating with his/her mouth open right next to me. “Who, bear? Must be enjoying them berries”, I thought. I took a peak outside and couldn’t see any bear, or any other animal for that matter.

Kyle and I had a few fun encounters today, including those with two MacGillivray’s Warblers in the nets, and another with two Yellow-headed Blackbirds hanging out in a flock of twenty-something Red-winged Blackbirds. At one point, there was a bird in the hand that befuddled me until Kyle came and asked, “What do you think this is?”. I said, “…(first-year) Chipping Sparrow?”, and he replied, “Yeah?!” “B–but, the stripes on the chest!” It’s always fun to learn new things.

We did some sawing, weedwacking and cutting in the afternoon to clear up the paths and net lanes, and then went back to the ranch and met new and returning volunteers. Andrew and Gail Harcombe, and Constanza Rivas. Welcome! Kyle and Constanza are at Tatlayoko Lake as I type. We are almost done with the preparation phase of the program, and once we are, we will try to post more and better pictures. As for now, here’s Tatlayoko Lake:

Tatlayoko Lake, BC. Smoke from the BC fire is visible.

 

We’ll all rise and shine tomorrow to start bird monitoring at 5:55 am. Until tomorrow.

Anna.

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Sept 28 – epic final blog

Northern Shrike with the Niuts in the background

So another banding season has come to a close, more with a whimper than a bang.  The wind shut us down early yesterday, prevented me from doing owls last night, prevented us from banding at all this morning, and will prevent us from doing owls again tonight.  However, losing the final 1.5 days to wind is a heck of a lot better than losing almost a week to flooding as happened in 2010 and 2011.  As this will be the final blog post of 2012 and probably my last day at TLBO since being here at the opening in 2006, I figure I should make it an epic one.

This season overall was a great one, like all seasons at TLBO.  We banded hundreds of birds, found three new species, banded 31 Northern Saw-whet Owls, had our first foreign recovery, and had several very interesting observations and banding records.  This year we added Black-throated-gray Warbler, Blue Jay, and Long-billed Dowitcher to the station list.  We banded several unusual birds including Swamp Sparrow, Blackpoll Warbler, two Magnolia Warblers, Boreal Chickadee, and Black-throated-gray Warbler.  Unusual sightings included several Northern Shrike, our second Black-and-white Warbler ever, Golden Eagle, Peregrin Falcon, Solitary Sandpiper, Long-billed Dowitcher, Common Tern, Eurasian Collared Dove, and Blue Jay.  Avery and I were both very surprised by the number of Northern Saw-whet Owls we captured in less than two weeks of trying, and this effort led to our first foreign recovery when RPBO in Victoria caught one of our banded owls.

Unfortunately this year followed the trend of 2011 and was our slowest year on record with just 1286 birds banded, 48 fewer than in 2011.  This however was due to probably the nicest fall weather TLBO has witnessed in her history.  This year we only lost one day to rain and one day to wind, resulting in our highest level of effort ever, despite the lack of captures.  This could suggest population declines, but could also just suggest the nice weather led to easier times for the birds who could migrate at higher elevation or more leasurely so as not to rush into our nets.  The latter might be supported by the fact that in previous years we always had a couple really busy days associated with poor weather and this year we had no really busy days because we had no poor weather.

Perhaps one reason the banded total was so low this year is that this was the worst year on record for the Lincoln’s Sparrow, which other than 2008 has always been our number one species caught, and even in 2008 we managed to catch over 200.  Strangely, we see a lot of similarities between this year and 2008, as 2008 was actually a great year for Song Sparrows as was true this year.  Also, the Northern Shrike, Boreal Chickadee, and Swamp Sparrow all made their first appearance since 2008.

	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012
Song Sparrow	148	69	231	101	141	127	166
Lincoln’s Sparrow	279	202	208	241	226	241	149

This year we were also fortunate to have another excellent group of volunteers and visitors.  Volunteers are always a vital part of what we do, especially for livening up a long season, where without them Avery and I would probably get bored with just eachother for companionship.  This year we even had a number of volunteers capable of doing the most important part of our jobs for us, which is both excellent and concerning 🙂  For our sakes it is a good thing none of them banded more birds than we did.  If you are considering volunteering in the future you should, if I am unable to work here next season I hope to come as a volunteer and steadfastly refuse to write blog, as all our volunteers did this year.

Bander	Banded	Percent	Recaps	Processed
Chris	596	46.35	110	46.02
Avery	414	32.19	79	32.14
Laura	151	11.74	21	11.21
Morgan	82	6.38	24	6.91
Barry	43	3.34	14	3.72

Well I suppose all there is to do now is wish all our readers the best of luck coping without this daily blog.  Avery is rushing off to band at Long Point, so if you feel a strong craving for blog I encourage you to email him and ask for daily updates.  He will be returning to warm Colombia again this winter so we should all be very jealous and a little spiteful 🙂

~Chutter

Species	Banded	Recaps
SOSP	166	88
LISP	149	23
COYE	125	34
WAVI	105	1
YEWA	86	17
SWTH	74	13
PISI	74	0
AMRE	58	18
NOWA	50	10
WIWA	44	3
OCWA	35	10
RCKI	34	0
SAVS	25	2
MGWA	24	6
DEJU	23	0
BCCH	18	10
ALFL	17	1
CEDW	16	7
WCSP	16	0
PUFI	14	0
AUWA	14	0
DUFL	13	0
AMRO	10	1
RBNU	8	0
SSHA	7	0
HAFL	6	0
WIFL	6	0
FOSP	6	0
REVI	5	2
LEFL	5	0
PSFL	5	0
WETA	5	0
HAWO	4	1
MYWA	4	0
UYRW	3	0
DOWO	2	1
NOFL	2	0
CHSP	2	0
HYSA	2	0
MAWA	2	0
RNSA	2	0
TOWA	2	0
VESP	2	0
HETH	2	0
FLIN	2	0
BHCO	1	0
BLPW	1	0
BTYW	1	0
LAZB	1	0
RWBL	1	0
TRFL	1	0
BOCH	1	0
SPTO	1	0
NSWO	1	0
BRCR	1	0
SWSP	1	0
VATH	1	0

Birds banded	1284
Species banded	51
Birds recaptured	269
Species recaptured	19
Species on census	108
Species Total	124

Year	Birds Banded	Birds Recapped	Species Banded	Species Recapped	Obs	Census	ET
2006	1595	272	52	20	110	118	131
2007	1770	199	53	20	121	116	137
2008	1874	459	57	29	119	111	137
2009	1866	307	54	28	116	108	129
2010	1817	297	54	20	121	115	138
2011	1331	232	49	19	111	105	125
2012	1284	269	51	19	109	108	124

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