The urge to get to the breeding ground is a powerful driver. Early birds have an advantage so it is worth their while but….there are inherent risks usually associated with the weather. We’ve had a long string of cold, windy, wet days and for insect-eating birds this can be a death sentence, as it was for the Tree Swallow pictured above. We found this bird in the river flats. It was severely emaciated. Given the long string of poor conditions, I can only imagine that this bird only represents the tip of a gigantic iceberg. On some days one could see several hundred swallows flying low over the river (downstream from York is a good area to spot them) looking for any insects emerging from the water. And if the conditions aren’t conducive to insect development, the birds will suffer. Early birds make a dangerous decision which, sometimes, just doesn’t pay off.

It’s been a slow week banding at the Farm with adverse winds limiting the number of viable nets and rain/sleet/snow shortening the day. Still, we did what we could do whenever we got a chance to the extent that the conditions allowed. And by paying close attention we noticed that the number of species encountered each day began to climb indicating that migration was going on – although birds in the banding area seemed to be the same and we were getting more recaptures than new birds in the nets. When this weather “dam” breaks there will be a big push as the birds that are being held up now will be on their way further North
April 8th; Banded 15:
2 White-breasted Nuthatches
3 European Starlings
1 American Tree Sparrow
1 Song Sparrow
1 Swamp Sparrow
1 Brown-headed Cowbird
6 Common Grackles
ET’s: 38 spp.

April 9th; Banded 13:
1 Eastern Phoebe
1 Eastern Bluebird

4 American Robins
1 American Goldfinch
1 American Tree Sparrow
3 Song Sparrows
1 Brown-headed Cowbird
1 Common Grackle
ET’s: 40 spp.

April 10th; Banded 18:
1 Golden-crowned Kinglet
1 American Goldfinch
1 American Tree Sparrow
3 Song Sparrow
5 Red-winged Blackbirds
2 Brown-headed Cowbirds
4 Common Grackles

1 Northern Cardinal
ET’s: 28 spp.

April 12th; Banded 7:
1 White-throated Sparrow
2 Song Sparrows
4 Red-winged Blackbirds

ET’s: 49 spp.

And other hijinx:

Of course, if you adjust the picture a little, it takes on a completely different “feel”:

Rick

The last few days have been a shocker…to say the least. Sarah, in the log notes on the 4th, noted: “exceptional flooding”. Here’s the water situation when we left on the 4th – creeping up toward the new banding lab:

This was just the beginning. All the rain we’ve had in the past week augmented by the heavier rains and snow in the northern part of the Grand River watershed ended up rushing through the system on the 5th and 6th. As the river rises it stops and then backs up inflows from other sources and this happened all along its route. All the low lying fields along the route were flooded. I’ve lived in York for 50 years now and I’ve never seen this level of flooding before. The river’s rise also backed up the pond’s outflow so it had nowhere to go but…up. Higher and higher. I would have been happy if the level had stayed where it was on the 4th but I knew that it wouldn’t. But I wasn’t prepared for what I saw on the 5th:


I took a look at the buildings…and the net lanes…and just shrugged. There simply wasn’t a damned thing I could do about. I just had to wait. On the 6th, the water was still running high and it wasn’t until the late evening when I visited that I thought that maybe it had gone down an inch(?). I’d have to wait to see what the 7th brought.
To give further examples of the water height here’s pictures of some of the net lanes for those of you that can remember them:






You get the picture. So this brings us to today: April 7th.
One thing about the Grand River: it can go up quickly but it can also go down quickly. I just can’t imagine the enormous amount of water that must have flowed through while I was sleeping. To my great relief here’s what I found:

Today we were able to open 4 nets and did reasonably well considering, banding 9 birds and recapturing 7. The new Net #2 is going to be dynamite…I think.

Banded 9:
1 White-breasted Nuthatch (female with a developing brood patch and carrying an egg)
1 American robin
2 American Tree Sparrows
3 Song sparrows
1 Swamp Sparrow
1 Red-winged Blackbird

ET’s: 43 spp.
In case you’re interested in flooding, here’s some pictures of the little park in York:

Rick

Well, we arrived today to an immense amount of water seeping from the river into the pond into our net lanes and beyond. The drive to the farm along the Grand River revealed playgrounds, fences and even stadium seating that had been overwhelmed with water from the river. In all of my time visiting this area, and Rick’s time too, we had never seen the water that high at the Farm.

It is very fortunate that at our set-up day we decided to raise the new building higher, adding more cement blocks to raise it off the ground even further than it already was. Believe it or not, even with this extra effort it was close to being compromised today. As the morning wore on, we noticed with shock and displeasure that the water was *continuing* to rise, right in front of our eyes. The entrance to the old lab was accessible by a small strip of land right at dawn, buy by 11am it was under half a foot of water.

Out of the 7 nets we have up, we were only able to open 3 today, due to the sheer amount of flooding making the majority of the nets inaccessible even with tall rubber boots. Even so, we managed to catch a few birds.

Banded 4:

• 2 Song Sparrows
• 1 American Tree Sparrow
• 1 Field Sparrow

Recaptured: 1 Song Sparrow

Despite the slow banding, we were able to complete a census (thanks to Ishira and Jeremy!), and we spent a lot of the day birding. We admired some small flocks of Blue-winged Teal that had alighted on the pond, listened to a Bald Eagle’s serenade of chirpy calls as it perched in the trees, watched Tree Swallows battle for territory, and looked on in awe as a beautiful adult male Northern Harrier glided effortlessly over the prairie. It was a glorious morning reaching 10ºC and sunny with no wind, which felt tropical compared to earlier this week. We ended up with an ET of 43 species – much higher than any of us predicted!

Due to the slow banding and the many hands, we had the opportunity to cut a new net lane, at Rick’s direction. Although somehow, he wanted us to cut the lane and also not remove the dogwoods… we decided a “light trimming” should be fine! This lane looks promising as it cuts between some patches of grey dogwood and smaller saplings, bordering some brush piles – time will tell!

Feather Friendly, a company who creates products to help reduce window collisions, was kind enough to donate an entire educational package to HBO. This is to retrofit our buildings to make them safe for birds, and also to provide education to visitors about window collisions and ways to prevent them. Luca and I began putting these up today in the time between net checks.

Overall, it was a very fun and rewarding morning! Even though we didn’t catch a lot of birds, we shared a lot of knowledge, fun stories, introduced some new folks to banding and had some great birding moments. Thanks everyone for your help and joining in on the watery adventures!

Maybe, I thought, I should break with the April 1st tradition in which I try to present the unbelievable as believable. Well, maybe I just might. After all, who would – could – believe that, after working my way through the wetland to the river just to see what was there, I should come upon 2 Black-headed Gulls! Now these are a European gull that have fairly recently established a breeding population on the East Coast but who would ever think that they might actually show up in the Canadian interior – on the Grand River no less! I was gob-smacked to say the least but….there they were, cavorting. Unbelievable!

After 32 days at sea on a research vessel (CCGS Jacques Cartier), what a treat it was to feel solid ground under my feet (although I can still feel it rocking just a little) and to sit at the picnic table and watch Blue-winged Teal on the pond and an Eastern Phoebe and 2 Myrtle Warblers hawking insects around it. When It warmed up a little with the emerging sun the midges decided to leave the pond and make their mating foray – to provide fuel for migrating birds.

Saturday’s work crew did a great job setting up 7 nets and clearing up a lot of the deadfall. I opened just after 7 and it wasn’t long before I got the first bird of the season. An American Tree Sparrow – a very nice way to start. These birds won’t be around too much longer before they head off on their long journey to the tree line to nest. There were a number of Little Brown Jobs around: Tree Sparrows, Song Sparrows, Swamp Sparrow, and White-throated Sparrows. Some I caught, others I just saw…but it was a nice start.

I must say that I’m a little intimidated by the new banding lab – so neat and clean. [While I was away my wife, Marg, did a major cleaning of the house so I’ve been instructed…forcefully…that I can’t mess anything up or drop any crumbs.] I’m afraid that this “mantra” sank into my being so I was reluctant to even set foot in the new building. I’m sure I’ll get over it, but it might take awhile.
We ended up banding 8 birds (listed below) and retrapping 6 – one, a Song Sparrow that had been banded in the Spring of 2023, so it had come home so to speak.

But the thing that I enjoyed the most was the variety of species that were already present – 33 species. Kind of jump started things. The pond was an important place for water birds: a pair of Canada Geese (getting ready to nest), at least 6 Blue-winged Teal, 2+ Wood ducks, 2 Mallards, 2 Hooded Mergansers. A pair of Sandhill Cranes flew right overhead.

Banded 8:
2 Black-capped Chickadees
4 American Tree Sparrows
2 Song Sparrows

ET’s: 33 species