Sometimes I think it its important to paint a picture for
the reader because I live a very blessed life.
I am writing this blog at the marsh I just hustled my fanny to get up the owls nets and I have half an hour in
the “birdhouse” to write up a blog about today's banding results before 55
students arrive from northern college to come and see how we band northern
saw whet owls. Then after a night of owl banding I will be visited by most of
elk lake public school for a morning of songbird banding…..live is sweet!!
Today I had
24 grade 4 students form Newliskeard public school and we had an interesting
morning of banding indeed. I was fortunate to have the help of volunteers.
Grade 8 student and bander in training Cody Goddard from NLPS and we also had a
volunteer from Presquile Provincial park
Kristen well I can’t remember her last name . … fast forward to 1:20 A.M.
Well back
to the picture painting. It is now 1:20 am and the group form Northern college
arrived half an hour early so I could not finish my blog so we have had an amazing night of owls with an
amazing group of dedicated young folk committed to helping animals. I feel
inspired to have a spent an evening with them.
Rather then get some shut eye I
am going to finish this blog and I have to check the nets in half an hour. I
have been alone since dalas forget left me at site b and mark Milton left after
we checked the shed nets and banded the owls we caught there at midnight. I
know this is a bit rambly but it is late and it is a banding blog and I am a
bit tired so we will get back to our visit from NLPS.
Had a great group
of energetic grade 4’s who all seemed to love nature and wanted to connect to
birds and wildlife in general. Grade 4’s
are the perfect age for a trip to the marsh. We managed to band 34 birds but we
probably le go at least 30 re-trapped sparrows. We did have a few surprises we banded two late
warblers a common yellow throat and a Nashville and both caught at the feeder
nets. We also caught a bunch of kinglets and a brown creeper in the back corner,
which always seem to happen in the fall and someday someone will explain what
is going on. It would seem that we
almost always only catch golden crowned kinglets in the fall and always in the
back corner. We almost always catch brown creepers when we are catching both
species of kinglets and today was no exception.
` Past Terra
student Maggie Macphearson was telling me that there is some evidence to
suggest that birds choose their migration partners based on a role they might
be able to fill. When we record what birds we band we seldom record what birds
we band together so most evidence is purely anecdotal but perhaps more work
will be done and what birds are caught
together in the same net at the same time.
I do know that in the fall the back corner nets are super inconsistent
and every now and then they yield creepers and kinglets of both species. Our
final count of the today is as follows.
Brown creeper 1
Ruby crowned kinglet 4
Golden crowned kinglet 4
American goldfinch 8
Nashville warbler 1
Common yellow throat 1
Black capped chickadee 1
White throated sparrow 4
White crowned sparrow 17
Slate coloured junco 1
42 birds 10 species
bird is the word! Murph
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