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Archived Postings

June 4, 2007 – June 10, 2007

The first of the LSLBO’s monitoring programs has come to an end. The last day of spring migration monitoring was on June 10th. June 10th is set as somewhat of an arbitrary end date since it is impossible to know if all the migrants have finished migrating. But as the final week of monitoring progressed, there was a dramatic decrease in number of birds captured, including a day with only one bird banded, and no evidence of migratory activity. Meanwhile, the birds in the surrounding forest are beginning to build nests, lay eggs, and incubate their eggs. We have already found one American redstart nest with four eggs. So it is time to switch focus and start the programs that monitor bird populations on the breeding grounds. Before we start with the new programs, here’s a quick summary of the spring migration. Overall, it was a good spring in terms of banding. The final tally was 1085 birds banded, which rates above the average LSLBO spring banding total. We also had another 113 recapture records. Most of these birds were banded earlier in the spring and happened to become tangled up again, but there were a few birds that had returned from previous years. These birds are interesting because they provide information on longevity and it’s always good to see birds returning to the same location year after year after a long migration. The two oldest birds we had returning this spring were a song sparrow and a red-eyed vireo, both at least five years old. These birds were both banded in 2003 as adults and have been recaptured every year since the original banding. We also had a good representation of different species in the nets. 48 different species were banded, ranging from the top banded species of the spring, Swainson’s thrush with 145 banded, to the single boreal chickadee. As for observations, there were no new species sighted to add to the LSLBO checklist. Three interesting observations did occur at the banding lab during the spring. A Townsend’s solitaire paused for a short rest on April 27th, a three-toed woodpecker flew past on May 10th, and a trumpeter swan was seen swimming in front of the lab on May 27th. For the next two months the LSLBO will be working on the MAPS program (which stands for Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship). This North American wide monitoring program monitors the breeding population of songbirds by identifying the demographics of the breeding populations through banding. MAPS compares the proportion of adult birds returning to breeding sites to the number of new birds breeding in each site. This method also provides a survival estimate for the adult population. MAPS also identifies the productivity of the breeding season by looking at the proportion of young birds captured after fledgling to the number of adults in the area. Like migration monitoring, the MAPS program is a long term monitoring project which allows for more precise trend analysis. The LSLBO operates four MAPS stations and has been participating in MAPS since 1994. The LSLBO is also conducting the Canada warbler project this summer. Once again, we are studying the breeding biology of these amazing birds. Before spring migration ended, we found some time to go through the study site and identify potential territories that males were setting up. Now that MAPS is beginning, it frees up some time to track colour banded individuals, find nests, and monitor the nests. It is a time consuming study, but the results will be very worth while.

2010