Our resident Killdeer sticking tenaciously to her nest despite the snow, trying to protect her egg.
Two centimetres of snow fell during the night and the temperature dropped to -5 Celsius. Early migrants will be entering survival mode as they wait out this very serious glitch in their strategy. The cryptic colouring of the Killdeer wasn’t very cryptic at all as it huddled on its nest trying to protect a single egg that Chris found yesterday. And in the martin houses, 2 second year males huddled. When the sun came up they chattered away before flying off. Martin “chatter” always seems so happy but this morning it could only be saying: “I’m freezing my butt off!”. Two days ago there were swarms of midges about – a staple for early insectivores but I saw none today. Tree Swallows were not checking out nest boxes but were careening low over the river looking for possible emerging insects. We keep the feeders topped up anyway but especially in conditions like this. Good thing, as they were being used heavily.
Purple Martin questioning its decision to arrive real early…..
I hope these 2 martins make it.
Early migrants usually carry stores of fat that they can draw on to see them through brief periods of bad weather. So the question will be: how long will this last? The outlook for the next couple of days is not good. Snow is falling right now (8:00 PM) and temperatures will stay below freezing for the next 3 days with a night time low of -11 tomorrow night. Things could be bad for these early migrants.
Another early arriver: Eastern Phoebe.
A number of years ago we had an April snow storm that grounded a large number of robins around the banding area. Some of these birds were having a hard time; in fact, several did not have the strength to fly from the juniper outside the lab to a nearby puddle to get water. So I went and bought some dried currants and put them out. The robins loved them and ate them down like kids in a candy store. You might want to think about adding them to your provisioning if you have feeders. Just sprinkle them on the ground/snow.
Some bluebirds have survived the Winter at Ruthven – this is probably one of them.
We ran a limited number of nets and set out ground traps. We handled 73 birds – 40 of them were retraps, especially American Tree Sparrows, juncos, and goldfinches in the vicinity of the feeders.
Plumage detail of an older (ASY) male Eastern Bluebird that we caught today.
Banded 33:
5 Mourning Doves
1 Eastern Phoebe
1 American Tree Sparrow
3 Song Sparrows
6 Dark-eyed Juncos
3 Brown-headed Cowbirds
1 House Finch
12 American Goldfinches
1 House Sparrow
ET’s: 31 spp.
Pictures from yesterday’s AGM (thanks to Gerda Smith):
Guest speaker Bruce Murphy who talked about owl and hummingbird banding at Hilliardton Marsh in the New Liskeard area.
Jim Smith,B.I.C. at Rock Point banding station, giving his station report.
Nancy Furber getting the crowd excited about hummingbird banding this coming season.
Treasurer Roswitha Matuschek reassures the members that we’re still solvent.
Doctor Christine Madliger (she just got her PhD!!!), talks about her research on Tree Swallows.
Rick explaining to the “Baggers” why they can’t eat all the Tim-bits.
Bruce demonstrating the size of the fish he almost caught…..
Faye, Rick and Jim sharing a moment.