July 25 – 31, 2024

Posted | filed under Weekly Reports.

After being delayed by high winds and rain late last week which brought a few small trees down over our nets and trails, the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory finally completed our breeding-focused Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship (MAPS) program on May 28, 2024. In general, MAPS went smoothly with a few delays caused by… Read more »

July 11 – 17, 2024

Posted | filed under Weekly Reports.

As the songs of spring morph into chips from hungry young birds to their diligent parents, we are seeing many fledgling birds in the nets. These fledglings are taking the next harrowing step towards adulthood as they leave the nest and finish growing. While all our songbirds start out helpless and require constant care from… Read more »

June 6 – 12, 2024

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On June 10, the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory wrapped up Spring Migration Monitoring after 56 consecutive days of counting birds. Spring began promising on April 16 with counts of over 5,000 Slate-coloured Juncos despite the warm temperatures and little snowfall over the winter. Juncos normally move through before we can start monitoring when early… Read more »

May 9 – 15, 2024

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Although goose migration has tapered off, our songbirds arrived in droves after being held up by stormy and snowy weather in southern Alberta last week. The biggest days for migration at the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory were May 9 and 10 with around 2,500 Myrtle Warblers counted each day and diversity shot up with… Read more »

August 24 – 30, 2023

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The Black Bears have finally begun to agree that there are no berries left at our station and have made themselves scarce, so we have started opening our ground-level nets. To compare capture rates between time periods with different effort put into netting, we keep careful track of when we open and close each net… Read more »

August 10 – 16, 2023

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Following August 10’s rain that stilled bird activity, things were looking up for us as we were able to open our ground level nets for most of the next two days. The good luck was not to last as last week’s Black Bear made a reappearance to again close our ground level nets as a… Read more »

July 20 – 26, 2023

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By Danika Wack- Boreal Educator Fall migration has officially begun! By the time you read this article, the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory will be close to wrapping up our MAPS breeding bird program and our field staff will soon be able to focus solely on the birds that have already started heading south. While… Read more »

June 8 – 14, 2023

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June 10 was the final day of Spring Migration Monitoring for the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory. It was an unusual end for the season because a Cougar was spotted too close for comfort and we decided to pack it in a little early. Aside from the abnormal Cougar encounter, hot temperatures, thick smoke, and… Read more »

July 21 – 27, 2022

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Southward songbird migration is well underway at the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory. Though the sky is relatively quiet, the nets are getting busier such that July 27 captured 141 birds to become the busiest day of captures so far this fall monitoring period. Since migration began, the nets have been busier than average overall,… Read more »

May 12 – 18, 2022

Posted | filed under Weekly Reports.

This week has been unusually slow and quiet for the Lesser Slave Lake Bird Observatory. Many of the species which breed north of us and migrate early in the spring have already moved on with only a few stragglers left. However, many of the later migrants have yet to arrive. Most years, this week is… Read more »