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Archived Postings

April 24, 2006 – April 30, 2006

April 24 to April 30, 2006 We have reached the end of April, which means two things: winter should be over and the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory has opened for the 2006 season. And what an opening week it was! Not only was the weather ridiculously warm, but there were some very large movements of birds. Flocks of tundra swans, greater white-fronted geese, and sandhill cranes were seen almost every day of the week. Songbirds were fairly quite with only a small number of the expected early migrant species twittering around the forest. That changed on the 26th where over 1600 American robins and almost 800 yellow-rumped warblers were counted. Passage of these species remained strong for the rest of the week, but in smaller numbers. A flock of yellow-rumped warblers hit the mistnets on the 29th and 41 were captured and banded. A busy banding day for April. The latter part of the week also provided some very high species counts, with new species arriving on a daily basis. There were no unusual sightings, and perhaps some of the arrivals were a little earlier than in previous years, but only by a few days. The first call of a common loon was heard drifting across the lake early in the morning on the 30th. A beautiful sound indeed. It is going to be a great season. The 2006 banding season brings some changes to the LSLBO organization. The largest and most exciting will be the opening of the Boreal Centre for Bird Conservation. The building is in its final stages of construction and all the staff are eagerly awaiting for the word to move in. The opportunities and challenges that this new facility will bring is what all the excitement is about. Personally, I am pleased that so much time and effort has been put in to create an environmentally conscious facility. Of all the environmental features, the one that has me most intrigued are the composting toilets. I definitely will be checking those out. The LSLBO would also like to give a warm welcome to Erica Forrester. She has decided to commit her time to the LSLBO in a volunteer capacity for the entire banding season this summer. Erica moved to Calgary a couple of years ago from South Africa, were she was born and raised. She has incredible stories to share. Erica is eager to learn all about the boreal forest songbirds, it will be a pleasure to work with her this summer.

2010