Like last year, I, Nicole Krikun, am making a special guest appearance to write about my and Richard’s Birdathon run. For those of you who do not know or remember us, Richard was the Bander-in-Charge and I was the Assistant Bander at the LSLBO for many years. Although I no longer work with birds, I… Read more »
Weekly Reports
May 8 – 15, 2025
Spring has arrived in the boreal forest which filled with the melodies of songbirds this week at the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory. Many of our short distance migrants have established their breeding territories or have become rare as they travel to different habitats or farther north. Replacing them has been our long-distance migrants with… Read more »
April 16 – May 7, 2025
The Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory began Spring Migration Monitoring on April 16. Our goal is to count every bird on-site over the morning. Part of this program involves capturing birds to mark them as individuals with a metal leg band. After banding, we can tell a specific chickadee apart from all the chickadees in… Read more »
September 26 – October 3, 2024
Fall Migration Monitoring at the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory has ended. We normally wrap-up September 30, but ran through October 3 this year since overnight temperatures were still relatively warm, potentially delaying movements of short-distance migrants. These three extra days were not enough, however, to find those missing migrants as counts fizzled into mostly… Read more »
September 19 – 25, 2024
September 12 – 18, 2024
Overhead songbird migration and captures have been slow at the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory as the end of Fall Migration Monitoring nears, but that is not to say nothing interesting has happened. We caught a Pileated Woodpecker – only the thirteenth we have ever banded and the first since 2019! As Canada’s largest woodpecker,… Read more »
September 5 – 11, 2024
Every year, billions of birds from over 300 species migrate to Canada’s Boreal Forest to breed, and twice as many make the journey south to warmer wintering grounds.1 Some days at the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory, we may see thousands of geese or songbirds flying overhead in the early morning hours, but this is… Read more »
August 29 – September 4, 2024
We have just begun owl migration monitoring at the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory with nine Northern Saw-Whet Owls banded so far. Since the program’s inception in 2004, 2,248 of these pop can-sized owls have been banded. In 2016, our second target species, the slightly larger Boreal Owl, was added to the roster with fifteen… Read more »
August 22 – 28, 2024
Ask the field staff how the past week has been going at the station, and the response is SLOW! With fall arriving in the boreal forest, we are observing a significant slowdown in fall migration with captures of some warbler species slowing down to a trickle. We are also starting to observe flocks of migratory… Read more »
August 15 – 21, 2024
As August slips away many of our long-distance migratory birds have departed for Central and South America so our counts and captures have slowed considerably. Soon we will say our last farewells to the few remaining stragglers and welcome tundra-breeding migrants. We must also say goodbye to our seasonal staff. While it has been a… Read more »
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Are you needing to brush up on your winter bird ID skills for the Slave Lake Christmas Bird Count or just want to know more about the birds visiting your feeder right now? Then join the LSLBO for our INTRODUCTION TO WINTER BIRD ID presentation at the Rotary Club of Slave Lake Public Library on Tuesday night, Dec 9th. ![]()
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Space is limited, so sign up is required. Call 780-849-8240 or email info@lslbo.org to register!