Weekly Reports

On May 22 the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory (LSLBO) participated in the Great Canadian Birdathon. The Birdathon is a yearly fundraiser with teams from all across Canada attempting to see as many bird species as possible within 24 hours. Teams collect donations for local bird conservation groups and 75% of donations are returned directly… Read more »

Many of our migratory species that breed locally were detected for the first time this year in the past week. These species included Blue-headed Vireos, Least Flycatchers, Western Tanagers (our mascot), Swainson’s Thrushes, Black-and-white Warblers, and Ovenbirds. We are excited to hear warblers’ songs joining in with the local sparrows that have already started to… Read more »

Despite the cold weather, bird migration is heating up. More songbird species are trickling through daily, but waterfowl movements are the highlight of this last week. On several days, we recorded more than 2,000 geese, with observers at the station counting over 15,000 geese migrating through on Sunday, May 5. Most of these geese were… Read more »

It has been a very cold and windy start to the 26th year of Spring Migration Monitoring at the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory (LSLBO). We began monitoring on April 16th, but very few birds have been captured due to poor weather conditions. If the nets are being blown around too much on windy days,… Read more »

It is the end of October and with that comes the end of our owl migration monitoring season. Despite a very slow start to the season, it ended up being the second busiest owl season ever. Meaning we achieved the second busiest fall for both songbird banding and owl banding – not too shabby and… Read more »

With fall migration over and owls nearing, but not at, completion, there is little in the way of updates for me to provide, but there is always something interesting to share about birds. A couple weeks ago I wrote about how birds have a very different breathing system than we have and the implications of… Read more »

Has I promised last week, this week I will provide you all with a round-up of the numbers, at least the numbers for fall migration monitoring – numbers for the year as a whole will have to wait until the last article of the year. Even focusing on just fall migration, though, there is plenty… Read more »

Fall migration monitoring came to an end this past week and I can now say for certain that we have not broken the record for the busiest season, though we did achieve the second busiest fall season in 25 years of monitoring. Once the numbers are all finalized over this next week I will give… Read more »

Despite my hopes that this season could break the record for the busiest fall ever it is looking like we will only attain second place, which, really, is not too shabby at all. As I write this there is only a few more days to go and over the past week bird activity has slowed… Read more »