“Tim”, the male Brown-headed Cowbird returned today. I wonder where he was all Winter…..
Tim returned today! If you remember last Spring, we were sending cowbirds to the University of Western Ontario where they were conducting behavioural studies. When they got more males than they could use we asked them to put a colour band on them and let them go. Five marked birds made their way back to Ruthven, a couple of them making the 160+ kilometer journey in 24 hours.
The green band tells us this is “Tim”.
A group of Fern Hill students befriended these birds even to the point of giving them names. We wondered if we would ever see them again. In fact, I was talking to Alex, the young girl that “adopted” and named Tim, just last week and she asked if I had seen him. At that time I had to say I hadn’t but today was another story. It would be interesting to know where he spent the Winter.
Golden-crowned Kinglets arrived today. All birds seen/banded were males.
There was a lot of visible migration today: small flocks of ducks, large flocks of Canada Geese and Tundra Swan, and single or pairs of passerines. We encountered 6 species that we haven’t encountered yet this year: American Wigeon, Bufflehead, Red-breasted Merganser, Northern Flicker, Eastern Phoebe, Golden-crowned Kinglet. Another indication that the migration was in full swing.
For the past few days we’ve seen a small number of Tree Swallows but they have always been over the river. Today a pair was checking out the nesting boxes at the corner of the parking lot. The battle with bluebirds is about to begin.
Banded 18:
1 Mourning Dove
2 Black-capped Chickadees
3 Golden-crowned Kinglets
4 Song Sparrows
2 Dark-eyed Juncos
5 American Goldfinches.
Species Count: 41 spp.
Rick