Sometimes, when you start something, you just never know where it might lead. When Joanne Fleet started the field studies program at Fern Hill Burlington I’m not sure she envisioned at first the development of a keen group of “Young Ornithologists”. But she saw the wisdom of doing so early on and then passed this on to Katherine Paveley when she assumed the reins of the program when Joanne left. Katherine was instrumental in cloning the program at the Oakville campus. The great thing about the school is its flexibility to put students into specialized situations that will maximize their learning in areas of great interest.
For the past two days Oakville’s Young Ornithologists have been at Ruthven learning as much as they could about birds and bird study, including banding and censusing. “Camping out” in the Coach House allowed them to spend a full day banding and then stay up late enough to do some owling…..and then get up early to spend another morning opening nets, doing net rounds, banding and scribing. Whew! Quite an exercise in experiential learning.
The students were pretty tired when they left. And we were pretty tired by the time we completed the paperwork and data input – but if you want kids to learn, this is the way to go.
And the birds co-operated! we handled 155 on the 23rd (90 banded and 65 retraps), 5 Saw-whets at night, and another 115 on the 24th (62 banded and 53 retraps): 155 banded in 2 days. That’s a LOT of learning!
October 23rd (daytime); Banded 90:
1 Red-bellied Woodpecker
1 Downy Woodpecker
1 Eastern Phoebe
1 White-breasted Nuthatch
1 Brown Creeper
1 House Wren
1 Winter Wren
7 Golden-crowned Kinglet
6 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
5 Hermit Thrushes
2 Myrtle Warblers
1 Northern Cardinal
6 Chipping Sparrows
3 Song Sparrows
3 White-throated Sparrows
1 Eastern White-crowned Sparrow
22 Dark-eyed Juncos
7 Purple Finches
1 House Finch
19 American Goldfinches
ET’s: 47 spp. (including 2 Snow Geese!)
October 23rd (night); Banded 5 Northern Saw-whet Owls:
October 24th; Banded 62:
1 Downy Woodpecker
1 Red-breasted Nuthatch
3 Brown Creepers
6 Golden-crowned Kinglets
5 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
2 Hermit Thrushes
5 American Robins
2 Northern Cardinals
1 Field Sparrows
2 Song Sparrows
1 White-throated Sparrow
1 Eastern White-crowned Sparrow
13 Dark-eyed Juncos
3 Red-winged Blackbirds
1 Purple Finch
1 Pine Siskin
14 American Goldfinches
ET’s: 43 spp.
Photos:
Rick