December 13 - Winter Songbird Monitoring

Just when I thought it couldn't get any wetter in the woodlot...it has now turned into a virtual bayou. Walking to net 15 was quite treacherous, as there were several spots where the water was over a foot deep. I don't want to even know how deep it is out near 16!


Even net 7 was flooded out!
On the bird front, there were two new species banded today! Sharp-shinned Hawk and Red-shafted Flicker. Sharp-shinned Hawks are much less common in BC than Cooper's Hawks, and only a few have been seen out at Iona this year.


This feisty bird was a hatch-year male.
Not many flickers were seen during migration, but they have become a common winter resident. So it was only a matter of time before we caught one, or two as we did today.


Otherwise it was a rather pleasant day, as pleasant as December in Vancouver can be, to be at the station. It was warm and we even saw a little bit of sunshine. Recapture numbers continue to be quite high, but unexpected was of the 19 banded birds, 10 were Song Sparrows. It's difficult to say if these birds have been present all along or if they were recent arrivals. A number of the birds caught today also had a considerable amount of fat. The warm conditions of late may have allowed these birds to add on more fat or perhaps they are getting ready for a flight further south.


One final highlight was our second Northern Shrike banded, this one an adult. Volunteers have been warned about the dangers of handling shrikes because of their razor sharp bill. I can now offer evidence of what may happen if you are careless when handling one.

December 11 - Winter Songbird Monitoring

It is hard to be optimistic when the weather forecast predicts rain for every day of the next week. But luckily optimism prevailed and we managed to get in an entire morning of monitoring in (well almost, we did lose 15 min at the end). The amount of rain we have had showed, as the entire north end of the woodlot was under a foot or more of water and many puddles were present in the south end. So if you will be coming out in the future, rubber boots are a must!

The number of birds caught (32) was lower than previous visits, although plenty of birds were still seen in the area. Perhaps it was just a one day anomaly. One positive note from the catch totals, was that 65% were recaptures, increased from 40-45% in mid-November. This will provide us with a better sense of what birds and how many are present at Iona over the winter, in addition to providing data on survival rates.


One of the Northern Shrikes that has been hanging around Iona Island was captured, the first for the banding station! It was a very brown hatch-year bird that was promptly attacked by an adult shrike upon release. Other notable sightings included a Yellow-rumped Warbler hanging around the woodlot, a Rough-legged Hawk flew over, and a group of six River Otters were seen playing around in the north wetland for most of the morning. Otherwise our usual mix of Fox, Song Sparrows, Spotted Towhee, Black-capped Chickadee, Ruby and Golden-crowned Kinglets were captured.

Winter Songbird Monitoring

Winter monitoring is underway!

A briefer on the program: Many songbird species that over-winter in North America are declining. Conservation and management of these species require estimates of population densities, survival rates, population trends, and understanding how these factors vary across habitat types and area. Much work has been done on monitoring birds during the breeding season, yet little work has been focused on the non-breeding season. Monitoring songbirds during the winter may provide insight into factors that influence population trends and can be useful to the management and conservation of these species.


Our winter monitoring program is modeled after the Monitoring Avian Winter Survival (MAWS) program in the southern United States and the MoSI (Spanish for monitoring overwinter survival) in Central American and the Caribbean. A program like this has never been attempted in Canada and so this is a pilot project to determine if this program will be successful and possibly duplicated. Southwestern BC is blessed by two factors that will likely contribute to the success of this project, a mild winter climate and a large population of overwintering songbirds. Our goal is to monitor the songbirds at Iona Island four days a month between mid-November until mid-March. I will update the blog following our sessions to provide a picture of how the songbird community changes over the winter.