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McGILL BIRD OBSERVATORY |
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Welcome
to the McGill Bird Observatory weekly report.
Click here for a complete listing of our archives.
Banders-in-charge: Simon Duval, Gay Gruner, Marie-Anne Hudson Notes: With only three days of banding this week due to the structure of our monitoring season (four days of census at the very end of the season due to a steep drop-off in species and individuals as birds get down to the business of breeding and/or finish their migration), it’s been a slow and lazy week at MBO. We haven’t been completely idle, however, as we took the opportunity to iron out the protocol and set up nets for our upcoming foray into our MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship - an important population monitoring coordinated by the Institute for Bird Populations that has strong participation across much of the United States, but a limited presence to date in Canada). We would like to thank Malcolm for his hard work – the net lanes are incredible! The program will run once every 10 days from now until early August; we’ll post a mid-season and end of season update to share the results of our first season of MAPS.. But back to this week … two species were added to the list of species observed this spring: Vesper Sparrow and Carolina Wren. Not only did we save the best (a.k.a. rare at MBO) for last, but with the Carolina Wren we actually managed to add a new species for the SITE, something we haven’t done all season (though it should be noted that Carolina Wren was observed at MBO in the fall of 2003 before we officially started our observations, so we did anticipate one would eventually show up again). Both birds were singing their very distinctive songs near the parking circle on different days. One species was banded for the first time this season: a sweet little female Indigo Bunting. This week’s list of most frequently observed species is again quite similar to last week’s, though with a bit of a shuffle in the ranks. Summer is truly here, with our breeders (either at MBO or nearby) filling up the table, each with a fairly large drop in abundance compared to previous weeks. This week’s top 10 banded species is pretty pathetic – we’ve reverted to our “tied-for-last-spot-with-one-individual-banded”. For the most part, the table indicates a mix of breeders and the last of the migrants moving through, booting it up to the Boreal. Consistent with past years, Blackpoll Warbler and Traill's Flycatcher were among the dominant late migrants. We had an absolutely wonderful season, so please stay tuned for the full report, due out shortly! A few teasers: the 66 species we banded marks a new spring season record, we banded record numbers of Tennessee and Wilson's Warblers this spring, but Red-winged Blackbirds fell to a fraction of their numbers of previous years. As a final word for the season, we would like to extend a big thank you and a congratulations to our spring intern, Benoît Duthu. His enthusiasm and glee for all things natural were always a pick-me-up on those particularly early mornings! We wish him all the best in all his future endeavours.
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