First, in Snow Bunting news:
Pictured above is the #1 Team in Canada this year for banding Snow Buntings: SNBU Quebec Cote-Nord. Despite the lousy Winter they have managed to band 2,089 up to and including April 30th (and may have a few more birds to go as there are still some moving through). Participants are:
(back row) Christophe Buidin, Valentine Vogel, Julie Lanthier, Real Poulin, Claire Germain, Yann Rochepault
(front row) Maite Rolland, Capucine Rolland, Lucille Lefebvre
Congratulations to you all!

In other news, Gordon Saunders reports that Snow Buntings have arrived in Iqaluit in the last few days. So there’s quite a broad geographical range separating the birds arriving in the Arctic and those stragglers that are just moving along the north shore of the St. Lawrence now.

At Ruthven:
We had another good day at Ruthven handling 76 birds (banded 59; retrapped 17) and encountering 62 species including 5 new ones for the year: Least Sandpipers, Chimney Swifts, Warbling Vireo, Cape May Warbler, Northern Waterthrush, Rose-breasted Grosbeak. In all we saw 8 species of warblers. Yellow-rumped or Myrtle Warblers were, again, the most numerous bird banded; we got 31 of them but this was just a fraction of the many that were around. They seemed to be following the river corridor.

Banded 59:
2 Mourning Doves
1 Downy Woodpecker
1 Tree Swallow
1 House Wren
1 Hermit Thrush
1 American Robin
1 Yellow Warbler
31 Yellow-rumped Warblers
4 Western Palm Warblers
1 Chipping Sparrow
2 Song Sparrows
5 White-throated Sparrows
1 Red-winged Blackbird
7 American Goldfinches

Retrapped 17:
1 Downy Woodpecker
1 Eastern Tufted Titmouse
1 Black-capped Chickadee
1 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (originally banded on May 1, 2011)
3 Chipping Sparrows
1 Field Sparrow
4 Song Sparrows
1 Red-winged Blackbird
4 American Goldfinches

ET’s: 62 spp.
Rick