On October 3, the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory concluded our Fall Songbird Migration Monitoring program for 2025; our 31st year of standardized efforts. Although the trees still bear their yellowed leaves, very few migratory bird species remain in our forests as the stillness of winter tightens its grip. For the third year in a… Read more »
Weekly Reports
September 25 – October 1, 2025
With high winds and yellow leaves beginning to cover the ground, things have been quite quiet during Fall Migration Monitoring at the LSLBO this past week. The same cannot be said about our nightly owl banding program. On September 24th we banded a record-breaking 30 Northern Saw-whet Owls. Each year, there are over 125 different… Read more »
September 18 – 24, 2025
The Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory’s songbird migration monitoring program continues to wind down without any late season surges. Most of the songbird species still moving through the area are short-distance migrants which only go to Calgary at the closest or as far as the southern U.S. or northern Mexico. Some years we see a… Read more »
September 11 – 17, 2025
As the owls begin to migrate through the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory, most of our songbirds have departed. We’ve entered a lull in fall migration since few warblers remain, but the sparrows are trickling south and will not arrive in large numbers until temperatures drop. Soon Central and South American nations will celebrate Migratory… Read more »
September 4 – 10, 2025
The start of September has seen a trickle of birds in our songbird migration nets, and a modest seventeen Northern Saw-whet Owls for our owl monitoring program. With the summer vacation season having ended and everyone returning to school and work, we look back fondly on the many tours we ran at the Lesser Slave… Read more »
August 28 – September 3, 2025
As the leaves begin turning gold, the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory has also started our owl migration monitoring. The first night, September 1, delivered us three Northern Saw-whet Owls to kick off the season. From September until the end of October, LSLBO staff set up audio lures an hour after sunset. These lures are… Read more »
August 21 – 27, 2025
Despite the heat, this week has been phenomenal for songbird migration at the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory. Each day was busier than the last as thousands of birds flew overhead during our seven hour monitoring period in the morning. In total, we counted nearly 17,000 birds from August 21 to 27. Most of these… Read more »
August 14 – 20, 2025
Fall songbird migration is already winding down at the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory. Big waves of most of our warbler species have come and gone. Yet the true vanguards of fall, such as Snow Goose, American Pipit, or White-crowned Sparrow have yet to arrive. Oddly, there were three very late-season families at the station… Read more »
August 7 – 13, 2025
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 »
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 »
Follow us on Facebook
It was a winter wonderland for the 31st Annual Slave Lake Christmas Bird Count last Sunday but we managed to find some birds in all that snow including a new species for our count (Grey Partridge) and a lot of waxwings! Thank you to the 28 people who braved the snowy weather and watched their feeders to record 2602 birds from 20 different species. ![]()
![]()
Preliminary results: ![]()
![]()
SPECIES TOTAL![]()
bohemian waxwing 1289![]()
common raven 460![]()
evening grosbeak 206![]()
black-capped chickadee 155![]()
pine grosbeak 130![]()
house sparrow 98![]()
black-billed magpie 67![]()
blue jay 43![]()
white-winged crossbill 43![]()
red-breasted nuthatch 28![]()
downy woodpecker 19![]()
dark-eyed junco 18![]()
hairy woodpecker 13![]()
redpoll 10![]()
ruffed grouse 9![]()
white-breasted nuthatch 5![]()
common goldeneye 5![]()
bald eagle 2![]()
Canada jay 1![]()
Gray Partridge 1![]()
Total Birds 2602![]()
Total Species 20
A big thank you to all the participants in our 31st Annual Slave Lake Christmas Bird Count today. After our team breakfast, everyone has headed out to see how many birds we can find in the Slave Lake area. Wish us luck spotting them in all this snow!