McGILL BIRD OBSERVATORY

WINTER POPULATION MONITORING

Week 18:  February 27 - March 5, 2007

Welcome to the McGill Bird Observatory weekly report.  Click here for a complete listing of our archives.  Comments or questions are welcome at mbo@migrationresearch.org.

PICTURE OF THE WEEK:



The peanut feeder, courtesy of Andre and Sophie, is proving to be pretty popular!  Note
that this particular customer has yet to pay us a visit when the nets are open...
(Photo by Greg Rand)

-

-

  THIS WEEK THIS WINTER 2007 TOTAL SITE TOTAL
# birds (and species) banded 5 (4) 81 (9) 19 (5)

9337 (96)

# birds (and species) repeat 1 (1) 27 (6) 6 (2)

1555 (52)

# birds (and species) return 1 (1) 6 (1) 3 (2)

203 (26)

# species observed 20 48 28

180

# net hours 4.0 85.0 19.0

14041.8

# birds banded / 100 net hours 125.0 95.3 100.0

66.5

Note: table does not include nocturnal banding (owls)

Bander:  Marie-Anne Hudson
Assistants:
 
Natalia Castellanos, Shawn Craik, Jean Demers, David Fishman, Sabrina Gosselin, Gay Gruner, Betsy McFarlane, Greg Rand, Clemence Soulard

Notes:  Heavy snowfalls late in week 18 made the feeders very attractive, giving rise to promising banding conditions.  Unfortunately the wind didn't agree and picked up after about 45 minutes of having set the nets up, so they were quickly taken down.  Still, we managed to band 5 individuals of 4 different species: House Sparrow, Slate-colored Junco, Black-capped Chickadee and American Goldfinch, and had a return Slate-colored Junco that was banded in late November.  This suggests that this young male has stuck around MBO throughout the winter, gorging himself on our seeds.

The other weekly observations were pretty much in-line with what we've seen this winter, with the exception of an American Robin on Monday.  Despite the deep snowdrifts, signs of spring are beginning to appear with singing Northern Cardinals, an extremely vocal Red-shouldered Hawk, and 3 unidentified icterids in the big dead tree on Sunday.  It is the first time in a while that we've recorded 20 species in a week.  Hopefully the weather will give us a bit of a break and let us gear up for the spring season, which is just around the corner!


This little chickadee made us look twice.  Chickadees are notoriously difficult to age at
the best of times, and it really doesn't help when one side of the tail indicates an
after-second year bird, and the other indicates a second-year bird.  The lesson of
the day:  always look at the full tail!
(Photo by Marie-Anne Hudson)

-

-

 

© 2002- The Migration Research Foundation Inc.