FALL MIGRATION MONITORING PROGRAM

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Bander-in-charge:  Marie-Anne Hudson, Barbara Frei
Assistants:  Jean Beaudrault, Dan Brown, Veronik Campbell, Sophie Cauchon, Natalia Castelanos, Alejandro Del Peral, Jean Demers, Emilie Dion, David Fishman, Marcel Gahbauer, Gay Gruner, Kanako Hasegawa, Amy Henderson, Sabrina Lalande, Barbara MacDuff, Laurie Maurais, Betsy McFarlane, Chris Murphy, Gillian Murphy, Ian Niu, Annie-Claude Paradis, André Pelletier, Limoilou Renaud, Clémence Soulard, Rachel Verkade

Notes:  This week was noticeably slower than the last few, allowing us the opportunity to tinker with our net set-up and the ever-present J-trap.  The product: an operational J-trap, and two nets that have been largely unused this fall due to their distance from the banding season have been moved closer, adding an additional net to each of A and E.  So far the nets appear to be working quite nicely, but the J-trap has yet to catch anything.  It’ll likely be a while before the birds realize that we’ve laid out a bounty of food for them, but that's alright.  We're a patient bunch.

If one species were to characterize the week, it would certainly be the American Robin.  They arrived ‘en masse’ at the beginning of the week, with a peak of roughly 1500 on Sunday.  They have been concentrating in the tall cottonwoods lining B (unfortunately - or fortunately - closed due to excessive leaf-fall along there), but have also been steadily streaming south high above the site.  It’s quite spectacular to hear them begin squawking away as the sun rises, only to fall silent as a Cooper’s Hawk or Merlin flies by.

A side view of this week's unusually pale American Robin (Photo by Gay Gruner)

This week’s newly-banded species include Hairy Woodpecker (a long time coming) and House Sparrow.  It seems that these little guys disappear for a while after the breeding season, only to come back in time for our winter feeder nets.  Newly sighted species for the season include American Tree Sparrow -- a sure sign that winter is on its way -- Pine Siskin and Cackling Goose. 

This week's top 10   [last week's rank in brackets] # individuals banded mean # individuals observed daily American Robin (82) [4] American Robin (419) [2] Ruby-crowned Kinglet (71) [1] Canada Goose (233)  [1] Golden-crowned Kinglet (15) [8] Red-winged Blackbird (132) [4] Hermit Thrush (14) [7] American Crow (131) [3] White-throated Sparrow (13) [3] Ruby-crowned Kinglet (41) [5] Yellow-rumped Warbler (6) [2]  Cedar Waxwing (31) [-] Song Sparrow  (6)  [6] Mallard (27) [-]  Blue Jay (5) [-] European Starling (27) [-] Slate-colored Junco (5) [-] White-throated Sparrow (21)  [6] White-crowned Sparrow (4) [5], Orange-crowned Warbler (4) [-] Blue Jay (20) [8]

This week’s banding top ten is dominated by two species: American Robin and Ruby-crowned Kinglet, which is no surprise to anyone who’s been on-site over the past few days.  The robin peak is right on schedule, as the largest flocks passed between October 14 and 19 last year as well.  The top ten sighted species are relatively similar to those of last week, with the exception of Cedar Waxwing, European Starling and Mallard making an appearance.  It’s anyone’s guess as to who will occupy the same spots next week, though we anticipate a big push of Slate-coloured Juncos to arrive soon, along with increasing numbers of American Tree and Fox Sparrows.

It’s rare to get such a clear shot of a vireo, but this little guy posed quite nicely for us while deciding where to fly after being released.  Notice the band? (Photo by Barbara Frei)

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