We had another great week out at Rocky Point Bird Observatory, even though our Fall monitoring time is drawing to a close we are still been seeing decent movement in and out of the nets. We did have a couple of days this past week dampened by weather conditions - including the storm last weekend, but poor weather can also have it's benefits. A windy day followed by rain did the trick and on the 10th we saw a nice push of birds between the stations, with 99 new birds banded at Rocky and 60 new at Pedder. Aside from the days we were affected by the wind and rain we saw steady banding numbers throughout the rest of the week.
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| We had a bit of wind at Rocky this week by Beth Christopher |
Ruby-crowned Kinglets continue to dominate our catch this week with 86 and 74 new individuals banded at Rocky and Pedder respectively. This past week they have surpassed Pacific-slope Flycatchers as the most banded bird at Rocky with 301 for the season so far! We’re still seeing good numbers of Hermit Thrush in with the Kinglets and Sparrows this week as well as a push of Pacific Wrens at Rocky with 39 new birds banded. Also in high abundance were Spotted Towhees at Rocky with 32 banded and Oregon Juncos at Pedder with 57 new birds banded. Sometimes it hard to believe we still have unbanded individuals of these two sparrow species hanging around the stations, but they keep turning up in our nets!
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| Cooper's Hawk by Rebecca Reader-Lee |
Along with our higher volume late migrants, we’ve also had a couple first of the seasons this week. On the 6th over at Rocky Point, we caught the first Varied Thrush of the season. We also banded the first Cooper’s Hawk of the season at Pedder. We’ve had quite a few Cooper’s bounce out of the nets this past season so to get one back to the station to band felt like a long time coming. We also had Pedder’s first Stellar’s Jay of the season, a gorgeous adult, banded on the 12th with the first coming a couple of weeks ago at Rocky. We also added to our tally of White-throated Sparrows banded with 3 at Rocky and 1 at Pedder. A late Hammond’s Flycatcher was also banded this past week at Rocky.
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| Varied Thrush by Nancy Raginski |
The storm this past weekend not only helped our day time passerine banding efforts, but also gave the our owl banders the first good push of the owl season. This past week’s efforts saw 53 Saw-whets banded at Rocky and 37 banded at Pedder, as well as 1 Barred Owl banded at Rocky. The 9th was our busiest night of the season thus far, with the crew out at Rocky catching 26 new owls, including the Barred, as well as 2 recaptures. The Pedder crew had a busy night as well with 13 new Saw-whets and 1 recapture. Though these numbers are lower compared to last year it is a welcome change from zero and single digit owl nights! Also interesting, our two recaptures at Rocky on the 9th were owls banded in previous years, one was banded in 2013 as a hatch year and the second was banded in 2014 as a hatch year as well! It’s always a treat to see birds from previous years return and these two owls were no exception, great to see them doing well and coming back to RPBO!
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| Light morph Swainson's Hawk by Ian Cruickshank |
During the day this week we’ve seen our diurnal raptor numbers drop off a bit compared to the past couple of weeks. This was mostly due to a drop in Turkey Vulture movement. Observed individuals were down from last week’s count of over 2500 to 895 birds observed at Rocky and 472 to 203 at Pedder. Although it doesn't even out the drop we saw in Vulture numbers this week we did see Red-tailed and Sharp-shinned Hawk numbers pick up slightly with 71 Red-tailed's and 88 Sharpie's observed over the week at Rocky compared to the previous week’s 52 and 55. Along with our usual raptors we’ve been lucky this past week and gotten a couple of rarities mixed in out at Rocky. Starting on the 6th, a light morph Swainson’s Hawk was picked out of a kettle of Turkey Vultures. The Swainson’s was seen the next day as well, gliding over the station giving the banding crew great looks at this spectacular bird. This was followed up by a Northern Goshawk as well as a pair of Golden Eagles on the 9th. The 11th also brought the goods, with both Pedder and Rocky recording a light morph Rough-legged Hawk as well as a juvenile Golden Eagle, it is likely the same individuals were seen at both sites. Rounding out the week on the 12th, the Rough-legged was spotted again as well as a juvenile Harlan’s Red-tailed Hawk. The Harlan’s was previously considered a separate species but is now lumped in as a subspecies of Red-tailed Hawk, which is under contention due to differences in morphology and plumage. It is currently under consideration to be split again, along with a host of other bird species, but a decision likely will not be made as further study on genetic differences and hybridization is still needed.
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| Bander in Training by Cathy Reader |
Both sites continue to be inundated with Robins, with high numbers counted again this week. At Rocky more Lapland Longspurs are being heard and seen at the front, with a season high of 4 being observed on the 6th and 11th. American Pipits also had a little wave move through this week, with singles as well as small flocks heard flying over head. Finch numbers continue to drop off, with the odd Siskin and Crossbill being heard at the stations. Most dramatically this drop can be seen in Purple Finch numbers, only 5 were caught this week at Pedder. Quite the change from a couple of weeks ago when we caught almost ten times the number! This past week, we also had two school groups visit Pedder as part of RPBO’s education program, a group of 3rd and 4th graders visited the station on the 7th as well as a group of homeschoolers on the 11th. We expect some rainy weather this coming weekend but are hopeful we’ll get one last big push of birds following the storms to end our season with a bang next week.
Other notable sightings:
Ancient Murrelets: first observed of the season at Rocky this past week with 1 on the 6th and 5 on the 9th
Red-throated Loon: first of season, flyby at Rocky on the 6th
Sooty Shearwater seen off the front at Rocky on the 7th
Vaux’s Swift: two late individuals seen on the 11th at Rocky
Northern Shrike: first of the season was spotted on census on the 11th at Rocky
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| Rocky Point | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9th | 10th | 11th | 12th | Total |
| Banded | 69 | 14 | 0 | 99 | 63 | 34 | 30 | 309 |
| Species Banded | 14 | 6 | 0 | 12 | 13 | 12 | 6 | 22 |
| Recap | 5 | 3 | 0 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 9 | 40 |
| Species Recap | 5 | 2 | 0 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 10 |
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| Pedder Bay | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9th | 10th | 11th | 12th | Total |
| Banded | 78 | 2 | 0 | 60 | 43 | 36 | 40 | 259 |
| Species Banded | 12 | 2 | 0 | 11 | 14 | 11 | 12 | 22 |
| Recap | 19 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 8 | 7 | 10 | 48 |
| Species Recap | 10 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 14 |
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