Bill Read and Alessandra looking for Golden Eagles during the census.
It was a cold, raw morning: brisk north wind driving a light drizzle deep into your bones. Soon the drizzle turned to snow flurries. I decided not to open nets, just set ground traps.
Part of today’s cavalry……doing a net round.
Nancy in the new protocol-sanctioned Saw-whet Owl banding uniform – taken from WWI nursing attire.
Getting ready to reduce Ruthven’s squirrel population.
This was also a day dedicated to World War I history at Ruthven – the Thompson family had played a hand in this country’s military history. So there were a wide variety of artefacts (including vintage motorcycles) and re-enactors dressed in military garb from those times.
Marilynn finally finds someone that will talk to her. Actually this manakin was used to highlight the enormous guilt trip that was laid on WWI era mothers to encourage their sons to enlist.
And I thought: how fitting that the weather was so lousy because many of the accounts I’ve read of that terrible war revolved around the horror of living in the trenches through weather just like this (or much worse). Only the participants couldn’t jump out of the trenches, grab a coffee and warm up in the heated Coach House. I simply can’t imagine how dreadful that life must have been – and that’s without the bombardments and sniper fire and throwing yourself against a firing machine gun as you cut through barb wire tangles just to “win” a couple of yards of dirt. As Bill Read reflected, we in Canada are very lucky (and unusual in the great scheme of things) that we have never had to fight in a war.
Unbeknownst to Gail Collins (serving coffee), Rob Gerrie is stealing a piece of pie.
But he was caught!! As a punishment he and Jim have to wear aprons for the rest of the week. (“But I didn’t do nothin'”, says Jim.)
And then I got to thinking about birds and war zones. What impact does war have on them as it destroys their habitat, interrupts their nesting or impedes their migration. The loss of avian life must also be monumental. Think of the “Shock and Awe” campaign unleashed by the Americans on the hapless (and helpless) Iraqis not very long ago. The shock waves from the massive detonations were enough to cause neural damage in humans a long way away from the explosion site. What would such an explosion do to a bird. [To me the fact that military authorities knew that these explosions would have this effect and that they still deployed them in congested urban areas, filled with civilians, should be treated as a war crime.]
Nurse Ratchet and one that flew over the cuckoo’s nest.
But I digress……it was an interesting day of history and fun and if you missed it, you missed a lot. Oh, and did I mention the excellent members’ “thank you breakfast” that kicked off the event (and fed the banders gratis)?
The conditions had the birds hungry and we pulled 26 birds from the baited walk-in traps, 16 of which were “new” (unbanded) birds. Of the 10 retraps, 2 goldfinches had been banded in 2011, 1 in 2012 and 1 in 2013; we also had a junco banded in 2010 – 4 years old and had returned to Ruthven for the Winter each year.
Banded 16:
1 Mourning Dove
7 Dark-eyed Juncos
8 American Goldfinches
ET’s: 26 spp.