It has just been brought to my attention that another youngster who has spent a fair amount of time at the banding lab has won the prestigious Ross Thompson Trophy for 2008. This trophy is given by the Hamilton Naturalists’ Club to a young person, under the age of 18, who sees the most species of birds in a year within the Hamilton Study Area (which I believe is a circle 25 km in diameter(?) centred on Dundurn Castle). The winner for 2008 is Caleb Scholtens. He saw an amazing 171 species. Under the tutelage of his Dad, Peter, he and his brother Jonathan and sister Hanna have often visited Ruthven both to add to his total and to begin to learn how to band – some day he will be a good bander as he’s very comfortable handling birds, even the big ones, and can identify almost everyone we catch. I believe Caleb is only 11 years old.

So that’s two Ross Thompson Trophy winners in the past 2 years who have benefited from their time at Ruthven – Giovanni Campanelli in 2007 and Caleb in 2008. Congratulations Caleb!! He will receive his trophy on March 23rd. When the banding season starts we will arrange for him to do a celebratory photo shoot at the banding lab…..

Rick