The Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory (LSLBO) is in the thick of Fall Migration Monitoring with our summer residents quickly vanishing. However, since we have officially passed any chance to complete our MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship) operations, let’s do a preliminary roll-up of our MAPS results. MAPS is a continent-wide program monitoring songbird… Read more »
Station reports
July 31 – August 6, 2025
Songbird migration at the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory has been wonderfully diverse, even if abundances were somewhat low. Our ground level mist-nets were again closed for the week, except for a rotation of nets we opened under a constant guard to chase off our ongoing fox problem if it appeared. Having a human near… Read more »
July 24 – 31, 2025
Fall songbird migration has certainly picked up at the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory but remains relatively slow with just around a hundred birds traveling overhead daily. Busy days for fall migration are impossible to predict, but can bring a thousand songbirds or more overhead and a hundred plus into the mist-nets. So far, we… Read more »
July 17 – 23, 2025
For many locals we are in the thick of summer, but for us at the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory and our songbirds, it is already fall as most of our local birds have finished breeding and southward migration is well underway. Overhead we are seeing a steady trickle of warblers, sparrows, and blackbirds with… Read more »
July 10 -16, 2025
Fall migration has officially begun! While we are still wrapping up our MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship) Breeding Bird program, the birds are already departing the boreal forest. Where the forest was once alive with beautiful bird songs, we now hear the sharp chips of foraging birds and the begging calls of juvenile birds… Read more »
July 3 – 9, 2025
Summer has just begun, but we are already seeing signs of fall for the birds. During our MAPS program, some adults are already beginning their flight feather moult in preparation for migration. While we’ve only caught a few fledglings so far, we hear them begging and see parents stuffing their bills with insects as these… Read more »
June 26 – July 2, 2025
The Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory is now over halfway done our Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship (MAPS) program as the forest comes alive with fledglings. To not keep all their eggs in one basket for too long, baby songbirds purposefully leave the nest, or fledge, well before they are truly independent. Well-meaning people may… Read more »
June 19 – 25, 2025
The Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory is busy monitoring breeding birds, as well as insects and spiders with relatively new arthropod surveys started in 2021. Once per ten-day period during beat-sheet surveys, a square sheet is held under a branch which is hit exactly ten times to shake insects off which we identify and count…. Read more »
June 12 – 18, 2025
It is currently peak breeding season and we at the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory (LSLBO) are hard at work capturing, banding and observing those birds breeding in the area. In the Boreal Forest alone, 325 bird species nest and raise their broods over the summer, and over half of those are small songbirds who… Read more »
June 5 – 11, 2025
The forest around the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory (LSLBO) is alive with insects and flowers, and flushed with green leaves on plants that were barren a month ago. But our favourite signs of life are the birdsongs that ring out from the forest letting us know nearly everyone who will spend the summer with… Read more »
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Hard to believe, but Fall Migration Monitoring has already begun in the boreal forest. Experience the special world of bird banding at our PUBLIC BIRD OBSERVATORY TOURS taking place every WEDNESDAY and SATURDAY morning until the end of August. Drop-in at the station anytime between 9 to 11 am and join us for this fun family-friendly education program. For more information, call 780-849-8240 or email info@borealbirdcentre.ca
This elusive Swainson's Thrush was the number one bird banded at the LSLBO during our spring migration monitoring program. For a recap of spring at the station, check out this update.![]()
www.lslbo.org/station-reports/spring-migration-monitoring-summary/![]()
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Summer is over quick for these incredible migratory birds. Our Fall Migration Monitoring program at the LSLBO will be starting up on July 12th!![]()
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All birds are handled by professionals and released unharmed as permitted by federal and provincial authorities.