It has been another excellent season of fall migration monitoring here at the TLBO. In addition to our usual bird banding and daily counts we added a couple new aspects to our program. These included a Hawkwatch, which we conduct on eight days, and tagging of Northern Saw-whet Owls with vhf radio transmitters as part of the Motus Wildlife Tracking System. Additionally, we collected samples for two different research groups and welcomed two local school groups to visit the TLBO. All in all, a productive and highly enjoyable two months! The fun isn’t over as Sachi will be staying on until mid-October to test out the feasibility of extending our Owl Banding Program an extra two weeks and may continue to do a bit of banding and the odd hawkwatch as weather permits.
The season kicked off with Emma Radziul joining myself for the first 10 days of the season while Sachi was wrapping up his summer work. We enjoyed high numbers of several local breeders. Most notable of these were the American Redstarts which had a bumper summer and would trounce their previous season record, finishing with 104 banded for the season. Swainson’s Thrush and several other warblers such as Northern Waterthrush, Yellow and Wilson’s Warblers also had seemingly high reproductive success as they were caught in above average numbers.
Banding timeline by season. After a strong August we tapered off through much of September
Moving into late August Warbling Vireos continued their dominance of the nets for the latter half of the month and into early September. In the end the 294 was way above the previous record of 219 banded in 2013. Songs Sparrows, which are omnipresent through the season, had their second highest season total with 214 banded.
One of 294 Warbling Vireos banded in 2021
On the flip side, Lincoln’s Sparrows and Common Yellowthroats, both species of damp meadows and grassy/shrubby areas, were at half their respective averages. The 95 banded Lincoln’s Sparrows was just the second time we’ve banded less than 100 in a season. For the Common Yellowthroats the 55 banded was our lowest season ever and just the 3rd time we’ve dipped below 100 in a season. Flycatchers as a group were also way below average with only the locally scarce Pacific-slope being above average. Dusky Flycatcher (2 banded vs average of 12) and the “Traill’s” Flycatcher complex (12 banded vs average of 29) were particularly low.
Birds banded by day in 2021
As ever, we had a few interesting inter-annuals among the 252 birds recaptured. These included a Song Sparrow banded in 2015 (6 years old), a Swainson’s Thrush banded as an adult in 2017 (minimum 5 years old) and a Black-capped Chickadee banded as an adult in 2017 (minimum 4 years old).
In the end we banded a very respectable 1727 new birds, about 150 above the 14-year average. This was particularly notable taking into account that we lost eight days of banding which is significantly more than normal. Our total net hours for the season were 3235, being the second lowest ever and 285 hours below the average.
One of a record 104 American Redstarts banded this year
On the observation front we detected high numbers overall, 27 591 detections being our second highest season total, about 600 behind last year. This pushed us over the 300 000 bird detections since the program began in 2006. Diversity was up as well with 143 species recorded also being our second highest total, after 2019 (149 species). Our most detected species were Yellow-rumped Warbler, Pine Siskin and Warbling Vireo. For the latter it was by far our highest season total and only the second time we’ve detected more than 1000 in a season. The below table shows our top 10 most detect species in 2021.
| Species | DET |
| Yellow-rumped Warbler | 4682 |
| Pine Siskin | 2146 |
| Warbling Vireo | 1410 |
| Cedar Waxwing | 1365 |
| Song Sparrow | 1360 |
| American Crow | 978 |
| Ruby-crowned Kinglet | 904 |
| Swainson’s Thrush | 806 |
| American Pipit | 798 |
| American Robin | 789 |
As ever, there were plenty of highlights for the season. By clicking on the species names you can link to our blog posts for the day we encountered them. We added two new species for the season, a Broad-winged Hawk on August 21 and Parasitic Jaeger on September 18 and 19, moving our TLBO species total up to 206. A few other notable sightings include: Greater White-fronted Geese on August 18 and September 27; a flock of Snow Geese on September 24, just the 2nd record for the TLBO; a young Sabine’s Gull (see Parasitic Jaeger link above) on September 19 and 20, also a TLBO 2nd; and an immature Golden Eagle on September 27. We observed and banded singles of Tennessee, Magnolia and Blackpoll Warblers, all species that are less than annual here.
Banding highlights were varied as ever but included regular but still exciting birds like Northern Harrier and American Kestrel (twice) as well as our first ever Sora which flushed from underfoot and straight into Net 17. Two Evening Grosbeaks banded on August 7 were another real treat as we so rarely catch them, despite hearing and seeing them regularly.
Sachi with our only Northern Harrier banded in 2021
The 2021 fall monitoring program could not have run without the assistance of our many funders including Canadian Wildlife Service, Tolko Log Hauler’s Fund, Cariboo Regional District (October Owl Banding pilot project), Otter Books, Calypso Environmental Services, Ruth and Charlie Travers, Joerg Fischer, John Snively, North Okanagan Naturalists Club and the many other generous individuals who contributed to our annual Great Canadian Birdathon. In addition, our Northern Saw-whet Owl Motus tracking project was funded by the Public Conservation Assistance Fund.
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| Species | Band | Recap |
| Warbling Vireo | 295 | 14 |
| Swainson’s Thrush | 225 | 39 |
| Song Sparrow | 214 | 112 |
| Yellow Warbler | 111 | 5 |
| American Redstart | 104 | 19 |
| Ruby-crowned Kinglet | 100 | 0 |
| Lincoln’s Sparrow | 95 | 13 |
| Orange-crowned Warbler | 77 | 4 |
| Wilson’s Warbler | 63 | 1 |
| Northern Waterthrush | 58 | 11 |
| Common Yellowthroat | 55 | 4 |
| Yellow-rumped Warbler | 55 | 1 |
| Savannah Sparrow | 30 | 3 |
| MacGillivray’s Warbler | 29 | 3 |
| White-crowned Sparrow | 24 | 0 |
| Western Tanager | 21 | 0 |
| Oregon Junco | 16 | 0 |
| Black-capped Chickadee | 15 | 18 |
| Cedar Waxwing | 13 | 0 |
| Hermit Thrush | 12 | 1 |
| American Robin | 12 | 0 |
| Fox Sparrow | 11 | 2 |
| Sharp-shinned Hawk | 11 | 0 |
| Traill’s Flycatcher | 7 | 0 |
| Townsend’s Warbler | 6 | 0 |
| Hammond’s Flycatcher | 6 | 0 |
| Pine Siskin | 5 | 0 |
| Downy Woodpecker | 5 | 0 |
| Red-eyed Vireo | 5 | 0 |
| Pacific-slope Flycatcher | 5 | 0 |
| White-throated Sparrow | 4 | 1 |
| Red-breasted Nuthatch | 4 | 0 |
| Purple Finch | 4 | 0 |
| Vesper Sparrow | 4 | 0 |
| Pacific Wren | 4 | 0 |
| Spotted Towhee | 3 | 0 |
| Golden-crowned Sparrow | 3 | 0 |
| Willow Flycatcher | 3 | 0 |
| Chipping Sparrow | 2 | 0 |
| Evening Grosbeak | 2 | 0 |
| American Kestrel | 2 | 0 |
| Dusky Flycatcher | 2 | 0 |
| Golden-crowned Kinglet | 2 | 0 |
| Alder Flycatcher | 2 | 0 |
| Red-winged Blackbird | 1 | 0 |
| Northern Flicker | 1 | 0 |
| Hairy Woodpecker | 1 | 0 |
| Red-naped Sapsucker | 1 | 0 |
| Western Wood-pewee | 1 | 0 |
| Northern Harrier | 1 | 0 |
| Cassin’s Vireo | 1 | 0 |
| Sora | 1 | 0 |
| Gray Catbird | 1 | 0 |
| Brown Creeper | 1 | 0 |
| Tennessee Warbler | 1 | 0 |
| Magnolia Warbler | 1 | 0 |
| Blackpoll Warbler | 1 | 0 |
| Clay-colored Sparrow | 1 | 0 |
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| SEASON TOTALS | |
| Total Banded | 1740 |
| Total Species Banded | 57 |
| Standard Banded | 1727 |
| Standard Sp. Banded | 53 |
| Total Recapped | 252 |
| Species Recapped | 17 |
| Species Recorded | 143 |
| Total Birds Detected | 27,592 |
Tatlayoko Lake Bird Observatory 