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Archived Postings

April 30, 2007 – May 6, 2007

This week the LSLBO welcomed the assistant bander for the summer field season. Referring to Tyler Flockhart as the banding assistant still sounds strange. Tyler is not new to banding or to the LSLBO, he worked at the banding station from 2002 to 2004. I have had the opportunity to work with Tyler on two other occasions, here at the LSLBO in 2004 (where he was the man in charge, we are still coping with the role reversal) and in 2000 at the Beaverhill Bird Observatory. I am thrilled to be able to work with Tyler again, he is a great birder, has lots of ideas, and we are very good friends. Migration monitoring stations, such as the LSLBO, gather a lot of data on migratory songbirds. This data can be analyzed to provide information on migration timing, population trends, population demographics, and biometrics (which provides further insight into the ecology of the birds). Determining an age of a bird is one of the most critical aspects of the banding process because it is used in almost every form of data analysis. Of course, determining the age of a bird is also the most difficult part of the banding process. Aging a bird is all based on understanding moult strategies. The order that a bird will replace old feathers is dependant on its age, its species, and the time of year. Aging birds involves staring at a wing trying to find differences in the colour, shape, and wear between various feather tracks. It is difficult. That is why the Canadian Wildlife Service organizes banding workshops every year to help both new and experienced banders develop their bird aging skills. The LSLBO hosted a banding workshop this week which brought together banders from across the prairie provinces. Part of the draw of this workshop was that the trainer was Peter Pyle, the man who wrote the reference guide that is used by banders across North America. The workshop was intensive and involved looking at of pictures of wings, wings of lab specimens, wings of live birds, and at times even a little arguing over wings. It was a good experience and learning from Peter was a great way to gain confidence in our skills. With Tyler now here and we were all refreshed on our aging techniques, we couldn’t be more prepared to catch some birds. But that’s where we ran into some problems. There really wasn’t too much going on at the banding lab. Daily captures were under 10 birds a day and there were very few birds actively migrating through the area. A large part of the problem was the unsettled weather system that was moving across Alberta, which eventually hit Slave Lake. This assumedly is what slowed migration down. A few new species were trickling in during that time, mostly sparrows. Savannah sparrows, white-throated sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, Lincoln’s sparrows, and swamp sparrows all showed up on the same morning, but only a few individuals were observed. When setting up the nets we discovered that the Swainson’s thrushes had also returned. They were attempting to be stealthy by silently moving through the forest, that’s until they became tangled in the mist nets. When the weather finally cleared, the birds took the opportunity to start moving again. American robins, blackbirds, and yellow-rumped warblers resumed their passage in large numbers. Orange-crowned warblers, black-and-white warblers, and palm warblers had also moved in. We even saw a black-throated green warbler. White-throated sparrows invaded the banding lab and many ended up in the mist-nets. It was good to have the nets filled with birds once again.

2010