Canada Culture Days events at the marsh

Months ago we received an email from Pam Mackenzie asking if we would like to be part of  Canada culture days  and after getting approval form the HMREC board of directors we were happy to agree . This past weekend was Canada culture days and we had the chance to host 2 owl banding events and a  a song bird banding event. We had about 100 people join us for all of the banding and we were successful in banding a bunch of owls and managed to band about 30 songbirds  the majority being sparrows and we wowed the crowd with a beautiful blue jay.  I think the important reason that the marsh is involved in culture days is that conservation and taking care of nature is a huge part of being  Canadian and should be  highlighted and honoured during culture day.   Pam was very excited about the marsh being a part of the celebration and has already asked us to be a part of next years  event. We are so in !!!!! thanks Pam and to everyone who joined in the fun. Murph

dsb1 students enjoy the marsh

Every spring and fall dsb1 students migrate to the marsh to have a chance to see how we do research and to see the true marvel of the  migration. This autumn the Canada goose and sandhill migration has been a spectacle to the delights of grade four and seven  and various high school classes. Students have been helping out with our bird banding efforts by transporting birds from the nets to the banding lab to have their specific numbered band put on their leg giving us a chance to monitor the migration. We are very fortunate to have the support of DSB1 director Linda Knight who has been a champion of getting students out to the marsh over the years.

     One of the things I love about banding with the kids in the fall is that they love the chance to band blue jays. We could have one of the rarest warblers or a seldom seen boreal chickadee but a blue jay wins the day in the hearts and minds of the students.  We have been having dsb1 students come to the marsh to band birds since 1996 next year we will be celebrating our 20th year of banding at the marsh and we hope to perhaps band our 60,000 bird. Celebrate is a good word for it, and the purpose of this blog is to draw attention to a partnership worth celebrating. The ultimate winners are the kids that get to enjoy a day at the marsh, one can never fully comprehend the impact that a bird in the hand can have. In the words of Rachel Carson famous  conservationist "If a child is to keep ones inborn sense of wonder, they need the companionship of at least one adult  who can share it. Rediscovering with them the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in." Bird is the word! murph

owl banding update 126 0wls and counting

Greetings friends of the night or perhaps friends of  the little owl know as the northern saw whet owl. This year's banding season has been interesting, perplexing, a little frustrating, and full of questions  about the movements of these little owls. It has also been a season of tweaking the process of having visitors to the marsh in an attempt at making the visit as fun for everyone as possible. I hope to get to all of these ideas in this blog so here goes.

With the substantial cold front that moved through at the beginning of September I was certain that we were going to have a quick and awesome start to the banding season. The cold front was soon replaced with warm night time temperatures and the migration seemed to stall . We caught our first owl on September  15th at 11:50 and after a week of banding had only captured  5 owls . I was shocked especially after hearing reports of over 100 owls being banded at Rocky Point Bird Observatory  in Victoria British  Columbia and knowing we had visitors soon to be visiting the marsh I was concerned about the status of owl banding this year at the marsh. The second week of banding was much better and we had some nights of 30  and 28 owls being banded which brings us to our current total of 126 owls being banded. Just to compare British Columbia banders are now at 326 for the season.

      Our success last week went in the face of what we usually experience with warm temperatures. Usually when we have warm temperatures we hardly catch any owls. They move on cold fronts and when I told a group of 50 owlers last Friday who were very hot in the "birdhouse" that we always do well when we have to put the wood stove on, someone responded "then put some wood in the stove!"  With the warmer temperatures we managed to catch enough owls to delight ort visitors but our best net check time has been the 4:00 am check.  I am really looking forward to some cold windless nights to see how many owls we can catch this week.

        The other thing we have been attempting to do is to get people to come out closer to the the 9:30 net check.  We have discovered that in order to run the research effectively  banders need some time to get organized and to carry out some of the routine items that need to be recorded or maintained or sometimes I just need sleep. So to this end we are starting to keep the gate shut at the entrance. We will open the gate between 8 30 and 9 when we are ready for visitors. We think this will help streamline the night and make the visit more enjoyable. One thing that it will do is help folks to make the night more efficient  we have had some nights when people show up for more than 2 hours before we start catching owls and some folks with little ones who had to leave just prior to a net check as the little ones were just played out. While I am excited that people are keen to see owls we need to help people know when to come closer to owl time  and everyone can enjoy the night much more . We are always looking forward to feedback on this  and everything we do at the marsh. I was checking out a website of an owl banding site in Wisconsin today and they limit the number of visitors to 38 and folks have to pay 15 bucks for a chance to come out. While that certainly helps the organization financially and limits the number of folks coming out I think we will keep with this system for the time being. Having visitors on Wednesday Friday and Saturday is providing us with nights to train volunteers on the off nights which is working out nicely. To find out more about volunteering check out the website.If you would like more information about our owl banding research please let us know . More news on owls to come. Murph

white crowns and white throats as epic as the leafs vs the canadiens

This fall we have been having a wonderful time banding  sparrows  specifically we have been banding a great deal of white crowned and white throated sparrows  and while banding is never a competition  it is always interesting to see how the  numbers play out. This particular fall we have been catching a great deal of white throated sparrows I would say more than we normally catch and we usually catch a lot of of white crowned sparrows. I had the feeling that it was worth checking the numbers to see what we had caught more of.  And just like some birders will  tend to identify with one species more than the other  it seems a natural inclination to bring up old rivalries like the leafs and the candiens.  So for a moment before  glimpsing to the bottom to see the final numbers for this years  sparrow  debate I was interested to look up the  record of the leafs vs the candiens .  In  742 regular season games  montreal  leads the leafs with 342 wins to  286 for the leafs. They also have the edge in playoff match ups  with 42 to 29.  I am not making a good case for the leafs or the white throats as  over the years

we have caught  2880 white crowns  and only 1817 white throats.

This  year however  the numbers are super close  we have banded 81  white throats  to date and 75 white crowns. Why am I cheering for the white throats ? Is it because they are the" under-birds?"  Is it because they breed in our area and we hear their song all May and June  and  the white crowns only stop here to feed as they prepare for the next stage of their journey. Or is it because the white throat call was one of  the first birds  beside a loon I ever learned  by ear? Who knows, such musings have to be endured by the reader as I have been doing this long enough to see patterns emerging at the marsh and want to pass them along. Clearly I look forward to each species each spring and fall. After a long winter  I look forward to hearing  the song of a white throat as much as   a victory of the leafs over the Canadiens.  Hopefully I will never have to wait as long as leaf fans have for a Stanley Cup. That would be a cruel thing to do to someone who loves sparrows. Go leafs go! Murph

Catching up

Well here we are, the idea behind the blog was to keep people posted  about how we have been doing at the marsh and I think I am suffering from the notion that everything i write has to be wise and inspirational. I can hear the laughter so lets get to what a banders blog is supposed to be about birds and what we have banded at the marsh this fall. So without any more drama  lets get to the birds. So far this late summer and early Autumn we have banded  about 400 birds representing  38 species . While the following list is not complete here are some of the highlights of the season


warblers in no taxonomic order this  is the order I copied them off the banding sheets

American redstart
yellow- rumped warbler
palm warbler

cape may warbler
bay breasted warbler
magnolia warbler
Nashville warbler
Canada warbler

chestnut sided warbler
Tennessee warbler
orange crowned warbler
mourning warbler
common yellow throat
black and white warbler

sparrows
chipping
song
swamp
white throat
white crowned

other birds

alder flycatcher
least flycatcher
olive sided flycatcher ***** The second we have ever banded
purple finch
ruby crowned kinglet
brown creeper
red breasted nuthatch
rose breasted grosbeak
swainsons thrush
veery
hairy woodpecker
 blue jay
red winged blackbird
red eyed vireo
Philadelphia vireo
american gold finch
black capped chickadee
northern saw whet owl

Try saying all of those birds in one breath!!! So that is what we have been up to please keep checking the blog for more highlights as I will try and both figure out to make posts and do them in a timely fashion.. Please stay in touch if you would like to become involved or if you have any questions or suggestions for us at the Hilliardton marsh.   Murph