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.

September 14 - Fall Migration Monitoring

Its over! Today was the last day of our first fall season of migration monitoring at the Iona Island Bird Observatory. While all the data is far from being entered, preliminary numbers are around 1600 birds banded, 500-600 birds recaptured, and another 100 birds caught and released unbanded. But before all that, a recap of today...


With a number of volunteers out today the 100+ birds caught seemed slow compared to some of the busier days of late. A mix of birds were caught today with marked increase in the number of sparrows caught with eleven Song Sparrows, nine Fox Sparrows, four Lincoln's Sparrows, four White-crowned Sparrows, two Spotted Towhees, one each of Savannah Sparrow, Golden-crowned Sparrow and Oregon Junco. More kinglets of both species and Yellow-rumped and Orange-crowned Warblers were captured today. But not to be counted out another dozen Yellow Warblers were also banded. Other birds infrequently seen included Red-breasted Nuthatch, MacGillivray's Warbler, Pacific Wren, Western Wood-Pewee, and two Purple Martins.



While this is the last date for fall migration monitoring, we will be conducting other programs later this year. Updates will be provided once we begin those programs. I'll also try and provide informative posts periodically that might be of interest to our readers. Until then, thank you to the volunteers for all of the help this summer and fall! Without you this couldn't have happened.

September 13 - Fall Migration Monitoring

The weather did not look too pleasant at the start of the day, with rain, followed by drizzle lasting until about 830am. But when we were finally able to open the nets, boy were we hit by an amazing fall out of birds! Walking down the pathway to net one and two you could hear chirps and calls coming from every bush, when opening up nets eight and nine I watched a flock of 30 Yellow-rumped Warblers fly off to the east and a constant stream of Orange-crowned and Yellow Warblers flying to the woodlot. We weren't quite sure how busy we'd be, but when we did our first net round and caught about 30 birds we knew it was going to be a busy day. I ended up spending the entire morning at the banding table, so I wasn't able to get the best sense of what was around. But the noise from all the birds around you constantly chirping was quite exciting, and every time I looked up another flock of birds was either arriving at or leaving the woodlot. The corridor of shrubbery along the west side of the woodlot was funneling birds to the north along it all morning, mostly sparrows but warblers and kinglets mixed in as well.



Several interesting or notable birds were seen over the morning. The most unusual was a Dusky Flycatcher, our second bird this fall, which is quite good as there were only two previous records. The first Hermit Thrush of the fall was seen near net one at opening, three Bank Swallows were still seen in the swallow flock, two Townsend's Warblers and five Purple Martins were seen on census, a Western Tanager banded, and the first Common Mergansers of the fall were also seen. High counts of 150+ Orange-crowned Warblers, 300+ Yellow Warblers, 200+ Yellow-rumped Warblers, 150+ Savannah Sparrows and 70+ White-crowned Sparrows were noted.



Our final total was 166 birds caught in just over 3hrs of having our nets open. Its not too often you have a chance to witness an amazing fall out like this, so we were quite thankful that we were able to make it out this morning!

Sept 12 - Fall Migration Monitoring

A soggy, wet, rainy day meant no banding today. Census was done, and it seemed that every Yellow Warbler I looked at had a band on it. Apparently, we are doing a fine job at catching most of the Yellow Warblers that visit Iona Island. The rain did make it difficult in finding a lot of birds, either because the birds were hunkering down in the vegetation or the rain made it difficult to hear or see them. What did turn up were a few Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Warbling Vireos, Orange-crowned Warblers, and Lincoln's Sparrows. Decent numbers of Yellow Warblers, Common Yellowthroats, and Savannah Sparrows were noted despite the rain. A few Bank Swallows were still hanging in and one Semipalmated Plover flew over. Otherwise, here's hoping for a drier day tomorrow.

September 11 - Fall Migration Monitoring

A new bird was seen for our fall season, a Mourning Dove. Its strange to think that of the four species of dove/pigeon in the area it would be the third of them to be seen. Habitat around Iona would appear to be ideal for them, but they are now likely the least common of the group to be found in the Vancouver area. Its a strange thought for someone coming from out east, where flocks of hundreds of them can be found at the rural/suburban interface.


Also of note for all volunteers, birders and photographers is that we have recently begun to colour-band the Black-capped Chickadees that are resident on the island. We have been monitoring the chickadees present on the island since the spring, when two pairs nested in the woodlot. Shortly after their young fledged (and were banded), they left and two other pairs showed up and hung around for a while. Since then the odd chickadee has been banded, but for the most part we have been recatching the same chickadees. We have now uniquely colour-banded several of the birds to determine what areas of the park they are using and better determine survival rates without having to actually catch the birds. If you happen to be at Iona and see one these birds please let me know at ionaislandbirds@gmail.com about the colour combination, the date and the location in the park (or elsewhere!) of where you saw the bird. To read the combination, read the colours from left to right and top to bottom. As an example the bird below would be read as, and keep in mind the bird is upside down, red over red on the left and green over silver on the right.