January 29/30th - Winter Songbird Monitoring

A slow weekend allowed us to take care of some site maintenance, namely building a roof for our banding table! Shawn Hilton came by on the 30th with tools and wood to put together a roof, with a little help from us, to provide us some protection from the elements. Slowly one step at a time the banding table is evolving into fully fledged station.


As mentioned before things were slow during this monitoring period. A total of 33 birds were captured, 22 recaptures and 11 new birds. Captures were dominated by Fox Sparrows (13), but also included Song Sparrows (10), Spotted Towhee (4), Ruby-crowned Kinglets (2), Golden-crowned Kinglet (1), Black-capped Chickadee (1), Bewick's Wren (1), and Golden-crowned Sparrow (1). A number of Song Sparrows have gotten wise to the nets and were observed flying under and around the nets. This indicates that colour-banding can be quite useful, as a number of other birds were observed well away from the nets and provide valuable survival information. One lonely Yellow-rumped Warbler, two Northern Shrikes, and one Canvasback were also noted around the banding area. Also of note for those remember from one of the previous posts regarding swallows, several have now been seen in the province including two Barn Swallows at both English and Boundary Bays and two Tree Swallows and one Barn Swallow at Swan Lake near Victoria. It will only be a matter of time before they are back at Iona Island again.