Weekly Reports

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 »

This past week we held our annual ‘Owl Night’ out at the Boreal Centre and as it is every year since it started in 2014 it was a very popular and well-attended event. And this year, unlike some other years, everyone was lucky enough to see a northern saw-whet owl get banded – some people… Read more »

Last week I wrote that our banding total could reach the top three if the weather cooperated with us… No big surprise it did not (I firmly believe the weather doesn’t like being taunted). This week started with rain, continued with rain and then ended with snow. With all that bad weather we missed out… Read more »

    Weather has played a big role in our birding success (and lack of) this week. On every calm, dry day we experienced heavy overhead migration coupled with excellent banding totals. On the windy and/or rainy days we not only had poor banding, but observation were low as well. We are at just over… Read more »

It is starting to feel autumney out there. The leaves are beginning to turn and the air has become decidedly crisp early in the morning; which isn’t all that early anymore. We start monitoring half an hour before sunrise, so the later we get in the season the later we start. No more 4:30 start… Read more »

Banders flock to Victoria for biannual CMMN Meeting Written by Robyn Perkins This past weekend representatives from bird banding stations across Canada traveled to Victoria, British Columbia to take part in the biannual Canadian Migration Monitoring Network (CMMN) meeting. The CMMN is a collection of approximately 30 active stations throughout Canada with the goal of… Read more »

Last week I was saying that things had slowed back down to normal, but I guess I spoke too soon. We had another couple days with over 100 birds captured as well as some better than 50 bird days. Now, though, I think I can be safe in saying it has slowed down (or perhaps… Read more »

After another busy week of banding 80-100 birds a day at the Observatory things are starting to slow down and get back to normal. Normal being catching 20-30 birds a day. This week, like the last one, we’ve seen and caught a wide variety of migrating warbler species with the most common being Tennessee warbler…. Read more »

Holy! A lot has happened this past week. We have just about wrapped up our final round of MAPS (only one site left!) and we have banded a lot of birds. And by a lot, I do mean a lot. Three days this week we banded over 100 birds and one of those days the… Read more »