McGILL BIRD OBSERVATORY

WINTER POPULATION MONITORING

Weeks 14-17:  February 2008

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 MONTH:



Winter at MBO - the snow in most areas is now over one metre deep, making for some
unusual encounters with overhead vegetation when walking along paths such as this
one past the C nets (Photo by Marcel Gahbauer)
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THIS MONTH

THIS WINTER

2008 TOTAL

SITE TOTAL

# birds (and species) banded

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-

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12978 (103)

# birds (and species) repeat

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2226 (59)

# birds (and species) return

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-

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331 (29)

# species observed

17

40

19

191

# net hours

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-

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21945.8

# birds banded / 100 net hours

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59.1

Note: table does not include nocturnal banding (owls)

Banders-in-charge: Marie-Anne Hudson
Censusers:  Amélie Constantineau, Shawn Craik, Samuel Denault, Gay Gruner, Demetrios Kobilirs, Barbara and Don MacDuff, Chris Murphy

Notes: This winter has certainly been a snowy one, with the total snowfall likely to soon exceed the all-time record set in the winter of 1970-71. As such, access has been limited to snowshoeing and skiing, and observations have been more difficult to come by than in past winters. We applaud our hearty censusers who not only took a few moments to shovel the roof of our cabin to ensure it does not cave in under the weight of the snow, but who continued to brave the elements to keep tabs on our feathered friends.

There was just one new species for the winter total this month, a lone high-flying Great Black-backed Gull, nudging the total to 40 species observed since the end of October.  There were six new species for the year, bringing the total to 19 after just two short months: Pileated Woodpecker, Rock Pigeon, Great Black-backed Gull, Bohemian Waxwing, Slate-coloured Junco, and Common Redpoll.  Sure that doesn’t seem like a lot, but we’ve got the snow as an excuse! We hope it will begin to melt in March as we approach the start of our spring season.

Since we have relatively little detail to report for the month, here are a few additional photos to round out the story for February:


By the end of February, the front gate to MBO was nearly buried; the next snow
storm in early March put the snow over the top of it. (Photo by Demetrios Kobiliris)


Snowshoe tracks are the only mark on the landscape now that the snow is well over
one metre deep across most of MBO (Photo by Demetrios Kobiliris)


A couple of trees have become favourite feeding spots for the local woodpeckers,
including this female Hairy working away at this tree (Photo by Demetrios Kobiliris)


One of our banded Black-capped Chickadees taking advantage of the suet feeder
(Photo by Demetrios Kobiliris)

 

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