Cold temperatures and snow are forecast over the next several days. It will be interesting to see if these conditions push Snow Buntings down into the area (southwestern Ontario) – and whether we can entice any of them to enter our traps.

CSBN UPDATE

Update on Progress in the Prairies:

From Winnipeg:
Hi Rick,
In all honesty it has been a dead year out here as well. I went out in December and then again in January to find birds in and around the Winnipeg area. Specifically, I looked north and east of Winnipeg and pretty much came up dry. There are a few very, very small pockets of birds to the north of Winnipeg. A friend of mine, Paula Grieef, the resident naturalist and bander at Oak Hammock Marsh has also been keeping an eye out for anything and apparently, the numbers have declined considerably from last year according to her.
Also, I have not been able to get out to look for birds on my own as much as I wanted to since I am a graduate student in the midst of finishing his thesis. I actually secluded myself for much of January because I needed to finish writing. I have just finished writing and handed my thesis to my committee for a defense in March. As I’m sure you can appreciate, my mind has been somewhat pre-occupied.
That being said, I will be travelling east of Winnipeg to look for any signs of Snow Buntings this weekend. This will be my second trip, as I did drive out that way during the Christmas holidays and came up with nothing. I’m hoping that I will find something, and if I do, I will be setting my traps to catch them.
Other than that, Manitoba has been dead. I’m hoping that in the next few weeks I can locate, trap and band some birds with the little bit of free time that I now have.

Sincerely,
Josh Levac
Bander-in-charge
Delta Marsh Bird Observatory

Update From Quebec:

From Rimouski:
Hi Rick,
Here we are now at 180 SNBU and 9 HOLA. Here’s the breakdown of the
SNBU captures:

Females: SY = 6
Males: SY = 95
ASY = 79

Things ave slowed down a little maybe because the weather has been
really nice. So nice in fact that I encountered a problem that I
suspect not a lot of people have to face when trapping SNBU. The ice
on the St-Lawrence broke up and therefore the tide managed to come
higer on the shore, so much that I had to move my traps away!

Here is a picture showing a young bander in training as well as a
picture of a HOLA.

ALex