Birds have been pouring out of the North for the past few days, the cold temperatures cueing them that the recent unnatural hot temperatures are coming to an end. Someone asked if we were still banding at Fern Hill School. I’ve been remiss in not reporting on our efforts there but the answer to the question is a definitive “yes”. Sarah and I split 2 days at the Burlington campus and I am in Oakville one day per week. Bird banding/study is an important part of their Field Studies Program – a program that is sadly lacking in most Canadian schools.
The netting area at the Oakville campus is along a shrubby corridor that separates the campus from a large cemetery. It doesn’t look like much but when you view the ongoing urban sprawl growing like a cancer to the west and the nearby industrial skyline of Mississauga to the east you can see that it provides an important pathway for migrating birds. [The cemetery too is growing – many acres of forest and shrubs have been levelled to make way for the dead. We used to run a couple of nets in the thick shrubbery on the western side….now it’s gone.]
If we band 15-20 birds here in a day we’re doing well. For us it’s important that the students (of all ages) get to see birds up close and learn a little about them – overall numbers aren’t that important. But on the 15th we had a nice “hit”: Dark-eyed Juncos had just moved into the area and we were able to band 34! We try to show students how you can tell the age of the birds we catch. Juncos are really good for this as their eye colour is very useful: older birds (AHY) have a deep maroon colour while young (HY) birds’ eyes are gray or brown. (When they are first hatched they’re gray and turn slowly to red over the next year.)
October 15th; Banded 52:
2 Blue Jays
2 Black-capped Chickadees
1 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
1 White-breasted Nuthatch
1 Hermit Thrush
1 Fox Sparrow
34 Dark-eyed Juncos
1 White-throated Sparrow
We had two interesting retraps: a Blue Jay that was originally banded on October 18th, 2023; it was an adult at that time so is at least 3 years old. And a Song Sparrow banded as an adult on May 2, 2023. It too is at least 3 years old as well; at the time of banding it had a “brood patch” indicating that it is a female. These encounters suggest that our little patch provides nesting habitat for some birds.
At the Farm, sparrows continue to infiltrate the prairie grass meadow and the edge….and move back and forth between the two. In these last two days we’ve banded 184 birds, a large majority of which have been sparrows (77.7%). What an impact the conversion of this soybean field to prairie grass has had on bird life!! And as more and more land is eaten up by “progress” – industrial farming and urban sprawl – the more important “food islands” like this will become to migrants.
To take advantage of these numbers, it’s important to have helpers to do the job. Fortunately, I’ve had good help on both days and, so, was able to open most nets.
October 16th; Banded 91:
1 Eastern Phoebe
6 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
1 Hermit Thrush
4 Purple Finches
1 American Goldfinch
1 Dark-eyed Junco
16 White-throated Sparrows
37 Song Sparrows
22 Swamp Sparrows
2 Red-winged Blackbirds
[29 Retraps]
October 17th; Banded 93:
2 Eastern Phoebes
2 Black-capped Chickadees
6 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
1 Eastern Bluebird
5 Hermit Thrushes
8 Cedar Waxwings
1 Purple Finch
2 Field Sparrows
1 Fox Sparrow
1 Dark-eyed Junco
17 White-throated Sparrows
26 Song Sparrows
1 Lincoln’s Sparrow
19 Swamp Sparrows
1 Northern Cardinal
[Retraps 62]
Rick