Week 13: It's All Over Bar the Owls

Our final week finished in typical October fashion. After a season in which we were very fortunate with good weather, we had consecutive days of rain to see our season out. On the 18^th, our final day, Christian and I did our respective censuses at Rocky and Pedder in sodden conditions and it certainly felt as if migration was all but over for the vast majority of species. Fortunately, the day before we had a few hours of sunshine and were able to get in some banding at Rocky. Unfortunately, high winds meant we were only able to open 2/3 of our nets and Pedder was not able to open at all. However, this break in the weather allowed us to take nets down in anticipation of the next day’s precipitation.

Golden-crowned Sparrow by Courtney Cameron

The week started off well with a Northern Saw-whet Owl in net 11 at Pedder first thing on the morning of the 13^th. The following day was a good one at Rocky with high numbers of marine birds moving, including a season high of 261 Brandt’s Cormorants and 1000+ Bonaparte’s Gulls. Both of these species have really only arrived in numbers this past week to spend the winter in our waters. Chasing the gulls off Edye Point was a Parasitic Jaeger, surprisingly, our only detection of this species this year. Overhead was a large movement of American Robins with 692 counted. Also noted  flying over was the season’s first Northern Goshawk and  a Lapland Longspur, the latter another species that has been scarce this season.

A friendly Barred Owl by Rick Hardy

On the 15^th the excitement was a bit more evenly distributed, Rocky again had a Northern Goshawk along with a very late Broad-winged Hawk. In the nets we captured our second Marsh Wren of the season. Meanwhile, at Pedder we banded not 1 but 2 Varied Thrushes, one thing that is more apparent when you have these gems in the hand is just how cheese-whiz orange their legs are! Adding to the fun in the nets was Pedder’s 7^th and final White-throated Sparrow of the season. The morning finished though with a Rough-legged Hawk that passed over the station heading west. This arctic raptor is quite rare on the island with only a few spending the winter in the area.

The 16^th turned out to be our last full day of banding at both sites, and the final day of banding period for Pedder. That didn’t stop us from getting one last surprise; not rare per se, but extremely late, was a MacGillivray’s Warbler that was caught in net 7 at Pedder. Despite the inclement conditions, it seemed to be doing well with a fat score of 4!

Harlequin Duck pair by Courtney Cameron

Saw-whet by Rheanna Neidinger

On the owling front, it was a stop and start week with a few nights where rain either cut sessions short or caused them to be cancelled altogether. Both stations hit milestones on the night of the 13th when Rocky caught Saw-whet #1000 for the season and Pedder caught #500! Interestingly, the numbers at the two stations were almost even this week, breaking from the normal 2/1 ratio.

Once again, we have had a very successful season at both our sites. As per usual, Pedder Bay finished with more birds banded with a total of 3558 of 60 species along with a whopping 1281 recaptures. Fox Sparrow was by far the most numerous with a record 654 banded.

Rocky had to deal with a high number of closures but still managed to catch a respectable 2790 of 63 species to go with 493 recaptures. The top catch out there was Ruby-crowned Kinglet with 243 banded.

The owl season has been phenomenal and continues to be so, although this recent spate of poor weather has seen numbers stutter a bit, however it would be not at all surprising if we get another large push with the next batch of cool, clear nights!

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Rocky Point	13th	14th	15th	16th	17th	18th	Total
Banded	52	37	30	27	1	0	147
Species Banded	16	11	12	10	1	0	27
Recap	11	10	11	12	1	0	45
Species Recap	5	4	7	6	1	0	13

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Pedder Bay	13th	14th	15th	16th	17th	18th	Total
Banded	31	45	37	28	0	0	141
Species Banded	8	11	12	11	0	0	31
Recap	17	30	18	20	0	0	85
Species Recap	8	11	9	7	0	0	14

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Pedder Bay	13th	14th	15th	16th	17th	18th	19th	Total	Season
Northern Saw-whet	22	10	7	0	13	0	0	52	537
Barred	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2
Rocky Point
Northern Saw-whet	22	8	7	0	11	0	2	50	1044
Barred	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	19
Long-eared	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1

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