At first sight, you rub your eyes and wonder if, just maybe, you made a mistake and somehow ended up with a food blog…..well, no, you came to the right place. But this potato salad has a place: This was supposed to be “Spring Clean-up Day” at Ruthven, a day when board members and volunteers spend a morning sprucing up the grounds, getting them ready for the coming tourist season. But, on the chance that the weather was not going to be very nice, it was arbitrarily called off. Can you believe that!? Yeah, it was cold (damned cold! some might say) and yes, the wind was blowing like stink, dropping the temperature even more. But, c’mon….you spend the morning picking up sticks and raking leaves in the bracing April air and then top it off with a BBQ. How tough is that? Too tough evidently….But, fortunately, McMaster geography professor Walter Peace never got the message. Walter makes the very best potato salad in the whole world and it has become a fixture, a tradition at these clean-up BBQ’s. And I am VERY partial to potato salad. So Walter helped me do the census and then I helped myself to his potato salad. To heck with all those sissies who stayed home because it was too cold…..they missed out.

But, to be fair, it was cold. When I arrived, the thermometer read 0 degrees and there was a dusting of snow on the ground and on the nets, essentially rendering some of them unopenable. The snow and the wind allowed me to open only a few nets. These were augmented by an array of ground traps. My plan was to band only until Melanie, a researcher at Western got here to pick up some cowbirds I had captured for her. But she was late (I hadn’t seen her email) and by the time she arrived I was “in” to it and stayed open for the full 6 hours. Good thing too because not only did I get a good feed of potato salad but I got to see an Eastern Screech Owl that Nancy and her son, James, pulled out of a Wood Duck box they were cleaning out.

Despite the nasty conditions there were birds around (we encountered 46 species on the day) and we were able to tap into them banding 25. The census turned up 30 species; most of these were hunkered down in sheltered areas that got some sun. For example, Barn Swallows were foraging low along the far shore of the river where they would be somewhat protected from the wind and could take advantage of the sunlight heating up the bank.

The Visser family from Burlington visited later in the morning. Mother, Carmen, was having a birthday and wanted to spend it seeing birds get banded. We did better than this and Carmen (as well as her son Carson) were able to band two of their own. Now, that’s a good birthday (and birthday present) in my books.

Banded 25:
2 Mourning Doves
1 Eastern Screech Owl
1 Golden-crowned Kinglet
6 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
1 American Robin
1 Chipping Sparrow
6 White-throated Sparrows
1 Dark-eyed Junco
1 Brown-headed Cowbird
5 American Goldfinches

Retrapped 22:
1 Black-capped Chickadee
1 House Wren
1 Golden-crowned Kinglet
2 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
1 American Tree Sparrow
5 Chipping Sparrows
2 Field Sparrows
4 Song Sparrows
3 Dark-eyed Juncos
2 American Goldfinches

ET’s: 46 spp.
Photo Gallery:

Rick