June 29 – July 5, 2023

Posted | filed under Weekly Reports.

The Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory contains breeding territory of five species of woodpeckers: Hairy, Downy, Pileated, American Three-toed, and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. While we see plenty of them during their migrations (yes, some woodpeckers migrate like songbirds), Yellow-shafted Flickers rarely set up breeding territories near our sites. Indeed, prior to this year, we had never… Read more »

June 15 – 21, 2023

Posted | filed under Weekly Reports.

After completing Spring Migration Monitoring on June 10, the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory is now well underway with the next of our core monitoring programs: Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship (MAPS). MAPS studies locally breeding songbirds by capturing them at four sites in the Lesser Slave Lake Provincial Park. Currently we are banding adults… Read more »

June 16 – 22, 2022

Posted | filed under Weekly Reports.

As we finish our second period of MAPS, shifts in breeding conditions are plentiful. These changes give hints to each bird’s nesting activity without us having to find the nest. The most detailed clues come from female songbirds who are often solely responsible for incubating a pair’s eggs. To efficiently warm these eggs, females drop… Read more »

June 11-17, 2020

Posted | filed under Weekly Reports.

by Laura Brandon, Boreal Educator After completing a very cool and wet Spring Migration Monitoring season, the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory has begun our MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship) program which is a continent-wide project coordinated by the Institute of Bird Populations that studies breeding bird populations in order to better conserve them… Read more »