It’s amazing the subjects that can be covered when a group of bright young people sits around the picnic table. Take the above picture. (Don’t tell us what you see – keep your deep, inner thoughts….and urges…. to yourself….) You see, it’s really not an inkblot a la Rorschach. It’s a picture of a facial mite that Keira took out of her nose! Well, not literally out of her nose….that would be kind of disgusting for picnic table interaction while consuming muffins. As an experiment, she put a piece of tape on her nose before going to bed. And when she woke up the next morning, examined the tape under a microscope for little parasites called facial mites. And there you see one. Evidently, everyone has them and, according to Keira, you get them from your mother shortly after birth and they stay with you for a lifetime living in tiny openings on your face/head like pores and hair follicles. (To combat them, I’ve reduced the amount of hair on my head….). Also evidently, your genetic lineage can be traced through the DNA of your personal facial mites. See! I’ll bet some of you think that all we talk about is the relative merit of Timbits vs home baking. This morning it got a lot heavier than that.

The weather over the last few days has been a roller coaster with temperatures ranging from low single digits accompanied by cold gusting winds and drizzle/rain to 27 C. and bright sunshine – t-shirt conditions. And, although migrants having been moving through, we’re now starting to see some of that exciting movement. I’m not sure what it is about warblers but they’re somehow special and when you begin to see (and catch) them it’s a great feeling.

The conditions have caused us to make a lot of adjustments to our catching: opening some nets but not others that the wind is billowing; in some instances depending primarily on ground traps; closing early as the wind builds. It can be a struggle but the arrival of long distance migrants keeps it exciting – you just never know what the next round may (or may not) bring.
April 23rd; banded 14:
1 Northern Flicker
4 Tree Swallows
1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet
1 Brown Thrasher
1 American Goldfinch
1 White-throated Sparrow
1 Swamp Sparrow
3 Red-winged Blackbirds
1 Brown-headed Cowbird
ET’s: 43 spp.

April 24th; Banded 14:
2 American Goldfinches
3 Swamp Sparrows
4 Red-winged Blackbirds
1 Brown-headed Cowbird
3 Common Grackles
1 Northern Waterthrush
ET’s: 44 spp.

April 25th; Banded 12:
1 Blue Jay
3 White-throated Sparrows
6 Red-winged Blackbirds
1 Brown-headed Cowbird
1 Common Grackle
ET’s: 34 spp.

April 26th; Banded 22:
1 Eastern Phoebe
1 Golden-crowned Kinglet
1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet
1 Gray Catbird
3 American Goldfinches
5 White-throated Sparrows
2 Song Sparrows
1 Swamp Sparrow
1 Red-winged Blackbird
2 Common Grackles
1 Western Palm Warbler
3 Myrtle Warblers
ET’s: 42 spp.






We’ve slowly making progress on the outfitting of the new cabin. It’s interesting how useful connections are made. I was looking for some ideas to put on the floor so that it would be easier to sweep up at the end of the day and to wash when needed. So Keira showed a picture of the building in the flood; she showed it to someone else who just happened to have a couple of rolls of rubberized flooring that, once they were put into place, seem ideal. And the cost? The donor just wanted to get rid of the stuff…perfect!

Rick

News has become marketable and very lucrative. If there’s a preposterous story line that captures peoples’ fancy to the point that they’ll watch the tube as it plays out then there’s money to be made. The more viewers, the more advertising to entice them; the more advertising, the more money to be made. In some ways it’s a shame that there’s no advertisement-free station that doesn’t depend on advertising. It seems to me that, although it’s taken them awhile, weather stations have gone the same route. You can get all-day weather with all kinds of dire warnings and “alerts”. And there’s a tendency to keep tuning in to see just how bad it will get and where. And, to be frank, it’s become a pain in the ass. Especially when you have to decide whether to travel to the banding station and suggest to enthusiastic volunteers that perhaps they might not want to make the trip because the forecast says……

This morning was a case in point. An “80% chance of rain” was predicted for the area starting at 6:00 and running through the morning. If I took it at face value I would have stayed in bed. But I’ve learned that an “80% chance of rain” can mean anything from a deluge to partial sunshine and NO rain. So my strategy is to walk outside in the dark right after I get up, put my hand out, and if it gets soaked I will call listed volunteers to let them know it might not be worthwhile or, if they’re coming from a distance, not to chance it.

This morning I was delighted to be joined by Maggie whom I haven’t seen for some time. A delightful young woman with wonderful life plans and a skilled bander. I’m glad I didn’t go with the forecast!

Small bird movement was starting to show with Myrtle Warblers working their way through the trees (high enough to avoid the nets) and I heard the first Common Yellowthroat of the year. Tree Swallows have moved past just trying to survive and are involved in energetic chases to claim nest boxes and mates. Four (2 males and 2 females) were involved in a chase and piled into net #9.

We recaptured a male Eastern Bluebird. It looked to be in fine shape but when checking for fat we noticed a large (1.5 cm) lump on its lower right abdomen. Would love to know what was causing this…tumour? Otherwise the bird acted normally and didn’t seem impaired.

Banded 14:
4 Tree Swallows
1 Dark-eyed Junco
3 Swamp Sparrows
2 Red-winged Blackbirds

4 Common Grackles
ET’s: 37 spp.
Rick

It was a beautiful day: blue skies, cool in the wind but warm in the sunshine. The sort of day that had us talking about the need for a rocking chair on the porch but, maybe even better, a hammock swinging in the trees.

I was sitting at the picnic table content to watch others working when out of the corner of my eye I spotted Sarah galloping through the wetland toward the UG net (#6, University of Guelph net). Mud and water splashing didn’t seem to be a deterrent so I knew it had to be something special…and so it was! Our very first Belted Kingfisher!! What a marvellous bird in the hand. Sarah did the honours and got a verry nice addition to her burgeoning banding list – and deserved it after plunging through the elements to get it before it could get out of the net. This capture provided a great opportunity to study the bird up close. We figured it was an older (ASY – After Second Year) female.

“New” migrants still weren’t obvious today although there seems to have been a moderate influx of Swamp Sparrows in the night. Otherwise it was same old same old….
Banded 15:
1 Belted Kingfisher
2 Swamp Sparrows
8 Red-winged Blackbirds
4 Common Grackles
ET’s: 43 spp.

Rick

The fairly lousy April weather continues with temperatures going from -3 C. on the night of the 16th/17th up to +20 this morning. But the most aggravating thing has been the wind with gusts up to 53 kph this morning, billowing many of the nets so they weren’t worth opening. Still, this is the hand we’re being dealt this year and we just have to play it.

Generally banding has been lousy, even though the 17th showed promise. This promise was dashed in the next two days but….on the 18th 3 keen observers, Irsha, Ethan, and Andy, through a census and then a river watch, turned up an amazing 62 species(!) including a first ever for the site – Red-necked Grebe – and a first for the Spring at the site – Wilson’s Snipe. As well, they had a number of firsts for the season: Green-winged Teal, Caspian Tern, Sharp-shinned Hawk, Merlin, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Brown Creeper, Vesper Sparrow. I can’t remember a species count this high at the Farm so early in the season.

But this didn’t translate to the netting area where “new” migrants have not yet shown up and we watch the billowing nets with increasing frustration. This has got to change….it’s just a matter of when.
April 17th; Banded 16:
1 Eastern Phoebe
1 Northern Flicker
1 Golden-crowned Kinglet
2 American Robins
1 Field Sparrow

1 American Tree Sparrow
2 Song Sparrows
1 Swamp Sparrow
5 Red-winged Blackbirds
1 Common Grackle
ET’s: 41 spp.


April 18th; Banded 3:
1 American robin
1 Brown-headed Cowbird
1 Common Grackle
ET’s: 62 spp.


Dave and Ethan Gosnell (and maybe Elaine?) redug the outhouse hole and got the outhouse back on its feet….so to speak. Dave even fixed the door. So we’re ready to go…whenever you have to.
April 19th; Banded 4:
1 Blue Jay
1 American Robin
1 American Goldfinch
1 Red-winged Blackbird
ET’s: 32 spp.

Rick