Aunt Becky and Kathy tell me about your trip!

Over my 19 lucky years of banding with young kids one common feature that seems to apply to most groups of kids is that they want to name the birds we band . Whether this be a taxonomic attempt like calling a black and white warbler the referee warbler or the salt and pepper warbler or just having fun and naming a hummingbird being banded "Aunt Kathy". Oh we have had many more names that kids come up such as "astro physics", "maple leafs want to win the cup" ( I had nothing to do with the naming of that blue jay) and perhaps the worst name in history was "strawberry puke". The birds that day all had to have a colour name and well the kids had a vivid memory of too many berries, so shame on parents that were thinking of too many blender drinks.  Whenever we have these avian authors come up with names of birds  and to show how recording data is so crucial we have them write their ideas down in the comment section of our banding sheets.  So the stage is set for something very exciting about Aunt Kathy and Aunt Becky so why not get dramatic..
       Ask any student at Kerns public what my favourite word is and they will easily tell you that it is serendipity ask the kids if I can spell it right and they will tell you "if I am lucky!"  Serendipity based on the  readers digest word power quiz I read at the dentist means "by chance or happy circumstance"  and that is what banding is all about . "Putting a band on a bird," Aldo Leopold a famous conservationist wrote, "gives us a ticket in the greatest lottery of all time".  And that is why we band birds.
      For those of you who know me I talk a lot so it will come as a shock that I really do not like doing radio interviews.  Joanne and I went to Sudbury to sit in the studio of CBC radio with Barry Mercer and I endured  5 minutes of sweat and mumbled enough coherent words together about hummingbird banding that Mary Demarce  gave me a call to invite us to their wonderful cottage on Wendigo lake . In a summer and spring of nestling failures across the east  they had a lot of hummingbirds coming to their 6 feeders. I taught with Cam years ago and when the two of them assured us they had lots of birds we packed up and headed to Wendigo.
     We arrived after a brief ferry ride on pontoon boat and as soon as we were on shore we heard hummingbirds and knew we were at the right place. We set up out two hummingbird traps and with a few adjustments starting banding hummingbirds. As we trapped birds Cam and Mary's grandkids took birds down by the shore to where Joanne banded them. Before each bird was released, the kids named each and every bird with equal enthusiasm with the hope that they would thrive and return one day. Before we knew it we had banded 27 birds which was our record for northern Ontario and we promised to come back the following summer. The real gift a host garden gives us is the chance to band on their property for years so we can possibly track the birds.

Fast forward to August 21st 2014.......
As chance would have it Cam and Mary had us back to their cottage and we managed to outdo our previous total by 1 bird making our new record at 28 but we managed to retrap 2 birds  from last year. The kids had two aunts that were at the cottage to see the birds being banded and each aunt had a bird that was named after them the previous year. One was "Aunt Becky" and the other was "Aunt Kathy" The neatest part was that we re-trapped "aunt Kathy" seconds after the real Aunt Kathy arrived at the cottage.

 Whenever a bird returns  it is cause for celebration but when it is a hummingbird it is cause for even greater joy.  Bob Sargeant  the man who trained us to band hummingbirds told us that he had no idea what we should expect banding in the north. We know that about 80% of migrating hatching year birds do not survive the migration. Becky and Kathy were originally banded as adult females and they made it back to the exact same location and were re-trapped within 2 days of their original banding. Folks always tell us that their hummingbirds arrive in the spring and hover where the feeder should be.  Bob Sargeant insists that this anecdotal evidence  can be misleading but Cam and Mary allowing us to band at their place helps us secure a link. Their location is going to be a great way to track the movement of hummingbirds and to see potentially how long they will come back for. The oldest banded hummingbird encounter was 9 years and 3 months after it was banded.  I wish I had the chance to band Cam when he was a hatching year bird. Maybe we can convince the kids to call one of their birds Cam or Mary. As for Becky and Kathy what they have done is incredible. They have both crossed the Gulf of Mexico at least four  times; once on the way south as hatching year birds. So they beat the odds and are in the 20%  of survivors. Then they came back as young adults and potentially had babies then they they made it back across the gulf on their second journey south then they made it back again.  Where they went after crossing the gulf we can only guess at. The only thing we know for sure is that they were banded as adults and somehow made it back to the exact same spot where they were banded a year ago.

      Many of you tell me how you marvel when you see a hummingbird sitting motionless on a branch contemplating their next move in the garden. Should they go to the feeder maybe snatch an aphid or alight in their favourite red flower maybe a bee balm or Holley-hock. The human Aunt Kathy came to the island after a phone call with a couple of liters of milk what call will send the hummingbird Aunt Kathy across the gulf yet again and more importantly what call will bring her back to Wendigo and will we get to see her again?  The only answer I can suggest is 'yes' with a little luck. And this is why we band.

hummingbird garden party

Leading up to the garden party there was a huge amount of work going on. Deb Murray and Eileen fisher were in full swing, the marsh summer crew was working hard  and the marsh was being transformed in front of my very eyes into an organization and a community where volunteers and people passionate about the marsh are making a difference and we are indeed becoming a community of people who are gathering to celebrate and learn more about birds and nature. In the days leading up to the event bouncing around in the back of my brain was an old song by Ricky Nelson called "The Garden Party"  and I kept hearing this lyric in my minds ear "I went to a garden party everyone was there no one recognized me I didn't look myself" Amidst the hustle and bustle of the months leading up to the garden party I rewound this song in my head over and over again and then at the actual garden party I finally realized what the song meant. Both as an organization of volunteers and as a physical place it is difficult to recognize what the marsh once was which from my point of view of being around from the beginning is very cool.
           The marsh as an organization is blossoming like Deb's garden. We have a great group of directors which are shaping the financial future of the marsh into something that cannot be recognized  8 years ago. With charitable status on the horizon and so many people supporting us by buying memberships, the future is indeed looking bright for us to keep on with our research and education initiatives.We are also being helped out by volunteers who mean everything to us and without them we simply cannot exist. From an organization dependent on the fine work of the Terra program we have emerged to be an organization where grandparents and older grandchildren can stand side by side learning to take birds out of the net. The cancellation of the Terra program has allowed us to grow into something,  well something that is hard to recognize but we are certainly on the right path.
      The marsh as a location is hardly recognizable as it was once as an alder swamp and flood plain of the Blanche river  that was drained and  farming was attempted and it has now clearly been converted into a wetland by Ducks unlimited and the Ministry of natural resources and now a section of the old farm land has been transformed by Deb and her crew into a thriving network of blossoms and berries to attract and sustain hummingbirds and other creatures of the wing.  The humming bird habitat also visually nurtures those who appreciate blooms and the bench gives people a chance to pause and take a moment to reflect on how wonderful the marsh is. For me it allows me to take a breath and think about how lucky we are to have so many who want to help out.  There was a moment at the garden party when I looked around  and I saw Deb Murray showing people  the garden  and  our trained volunteers were just coming back with birds from a net check. People were munching on little garden party treats  and I looked over to see Joanne putting a hummingbird to a young girls  ear and I saw the look on her grandmothers face  and I smiled  and hummed the now familiar lyric in my head  " the marsh had a garden party everyone was there  no one  recognized us   the marsh didn't look itself.   Thank you all for making the garden party such a wonderful event we are looking forward to next years garden party already.-murph

First Blog: "what we do at the marsh" and An Apology

Having never blogged before  it feels kind of weird to be doing this  almost like writing a journal that you are hoping everyone will read. Well the truth of this effort is that I have been inspired by the work done by Rick Ludkin at Ruthven Park and the work and kinship he has been spreading about the Canadian Snow bunting  network. Rick has been writing a blog for years now and I always thought if we ever developed a website that had potential for sharing photo's and stories about the marsh the birds and banders and visitors that we would do it .  So that is how we have arrived in cyber land . I still do not really understand facebook and twitter  but writing on a blank sheet that i can fathom. Anyone reading this  will soon learn that on most days i fight with the key board and I seem to lose interest in spell check entirely  so this first entry while most likely will slip into oblivion does hold the disclaimer about spelling and grammar. The reader will also notice that my writing style is best described as flow of consciousness and I believe i hold my high school record for the longest run on sentence in history.  Ok enough with the boring  stuff and all of the apologies it ok to be a crappy writer if you have something worthwhile to write about  and i feel that the marsh and the birds and the people who are passionate about them is worth writing about. If we do not share the same idea then i suggest you move the cursor and migrate somewhere else. I am writing for the person who is interested in migrations  and how it is that these feathered wonders make their way into our nets  feeders and hearts. Before i sign off on this first blog i would like to say a word about the man in this photo. This is Bob Sargeant from Clay Alabama. He taught Joanne and i about hummingbird banding and he continues to be my mentor and inspiration. While he was teaching us the basics of measuring and handling safely and the subtle touches to trapping  and engaging people in the process he was slowly and gently coaxing us to think more about the wonders of migrations and to really consider the joy that being close to birds and nature provides. I think every bander never tires of the look on peoples faces when they have the chance to hold a precious avian life in their hands for the first time or to listen to the heart rate of a ruby throat or to have a hummingbird lie still in an outstreched hand poised to take off any second as it gathers its feet beneath them leaping to the air to the delight of  those gathered to watch. These are the moments that endure and touch people. This was what Bob Sargeant taught us and this is something that i think is worth sharing about what we do at the marsh. So come along  and let me tell you about what we do at the marsh.

Hilliardton Marsh visits the Wye Marsh

This past weekend Jo and I had the opportunity to travel to the Wye Marsh Wildlife Centre to participate in their “Get Outdoors Festival”.  Over the course of three days we managed to band 31 Hummingbirds at the marsh and surrounding area and met dozens of wonderful people.  We presented a slide show about the projects happening at the Hilliardton Marsh to an interested crowd of bird enthusiasts.   We are pleased with the partnership that we have developed with one of the most prestigious wetland centres in Ontario.  Although the Wye Marsh is truly a sophisticated organization I cannot help but say, nothing compares to OUR Hilliardton Marsh J   A special thanks goes out to Sara Street of the Wye Marsh and to our gracious hosts Ray and Mary Nason

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