Purple Marting nest with 5 eggs in one of the hanging gourds. -G. Casimirri
We went into May with high hopes. Coming off a record April. the future looked bright indeed. But then the wheels came off….and they never seemed to get back on.
I like the simple stat: “birds per 100 net hours”. One net hour refers to one 12-m net open for 1 hour; the stat is the number of birds caught for every 100 hours a net is open. It gives a rough calculation of the flow of birds through the site. Always….ALWAYS…the number of birds per 100 net hours at Ruthven in May is larger than the number for April. Always. But not this year. For the first time in 18 Spring seasons, the rate of flow for May was lower than it was for April (20.2 birds per 100 net hours vs 26.4). This deflation caused our overall season statistic to nosedive so that we experienced the lowest rate (22.7/100 nt hrs) in our 18 Spring seasons.
Male Magnolia Warbler -B. Tregunno
The drop was most noticeable in the number of warblers we caught: normally they make up about 21% of our Spring catch but this year accounted for only 15%. And when you take Yellow Warblers and Common Yellowthroats (since they nest here) and Myrtle Warblers (a short-distance migrant) out of the mix, this drops to only 7%. Neotropical migrant warblers made up only 7% of our banded birds!? Yikes! We had many days this May when the forest was simply empty. No warbler song or movement. We thought it strange….strange and ominous at the same time. And it still is unsettling. It will be interesting to see what other stations experienced; whether this was simply an anomaly specific to our station this year, or something that was witnessed over a broader range.
Male Chestnut-sided Warbler
For the record:
– we banded 1,793 birds
– 883 in April; 910 in May
– we banded 82 species
– on our “biggest” day we banded 62 birds (April 8th & 14th)
– over the two months we saw 151 species, the most interesting being a Clay-coloured Sparrow and an Olive-sided Flycatcher
Top Ten:
American Goldfinch – 288
Golden-crowned Kinglet – 145
Dark-eyed Junco – 115
Yellow Warbler – 106
Chipping Sparrow – 99
Song Sparrow – 86
Gray Catbird – 74
White-throated Sparrow – 73
Brown-headed Cowbird – 73
Ruby-crowned Kinglet – 62
End of year picnic lunch. -G. Casimirri
On a positive note, we had 1,170 visitors in April and May and volunteers contributed 1,263 hours of their time to make it all happen.
Thanks to everyone! Numbers really don’t account for the fun that we had and the learning that we experienced.
Photo Gallery:
Checking how the Purple Martins are making out. -G. Casimirri
Ruthven student Andrea befriended by Autumn. -G. Casimirri
Sweet Cicily (?) -G. Casimirri
Fairly rare Green Dragon -G. Casimirri
Male Northern Flicker
Aptly named “yellow-shafted” flicker (I much prefer this to “northern”)
Jack-in-the-Pulpit -B. Tregunno
Bracket Fungus -B. Tregunno
Star of Bethlehem -B. Tregunno
Snail -B. Tregunno
Ragged SY male Blue-winged Warbler -B. Tregunno
Resplendent male Indigo Bunting -B. Tregunno
Female Wilson’s Warbler -B. Tregunno
Rick
Did you band ANY Scarlet Tanagers this Spring?
still amazing work congratulations to your crew of volunteers we are still banding in northern ontario one week to go our numbers are very similar to yours and warblers are much lower. All the best in your fall banding season
For Joanne: we saw a couple of Scarlet Tanagers but didn’t band any. Also, we neither saw nor banded a Gray-cheeked Thrush!!
For Bruce (who runs Hilliardton Marsh up around Lake Timiskaming) – when you finish please give us a further breakdown of your numbers – especially warbler numbers. It seems kind of concerning.