Rocky Point Bird Observatory: Week 2: Mystery of the census skull

RPBO Week 2

Black-throated Gray Warbler at Rocky - Photo S. Darlington

It’s Week 2 of Rocky Point’s 2019 Passerine season and we’re already off to a great start. This week was full of great birds in the nets, flyovers on obs, and interesting wildlife sightings. Front and center were Wilson’s (49 new bands) and MacGillivray’s (27 new bands) warblers, Puget Sound White-crowned Sparrow (37 new bands), Pacific-Slope Flycatcher (29 new bands), and American Goldfinch (23 new bands) at both stations plus some exciting new birds for the year.

We would like to congratulate and welcome our two new passerine interns Ashlea Veldhoen and Rebecca Golat, who will be starting as part of the banding team this August. We also want to congratulate Mitchell Ogilvie for being upgraded to extractor status this week. We had a great turn out of volunteers all week, with many familiar and many new faces!

Banding & Obs Recap:

On Sunday we had a good banding day at Rocky Point with 41 new bands and were lucky to find a Marbled Godwit in the front in the early morning. We also banded our first red-breasted nuthatch for the season.


Marbled Godwit spotted by Rick Shortinghuis. Pic. S. Darlington

The birds slowed down at Rocky on Monday with 15 new bands and a lesser yellowlegs flying by. Long-billed dowitchers and a semi-palmated plover were heard flying over Rocky Point on Tuesday.

An early and very cute arrival surprised our banding intern Ashlea when a juvenile saw-whet owl landed in net 10 on the first net run on Wednesday morning at Rocky. A barred owl was also spotted by net 5 and seen again the following day by net 8.

Juvenile northern saw-whet owl. Photo D. Bell.

Barred owl at Rocky. Photo S. Darlington

Blair Dudeck’s Olive-sided flycatcher from 2017 was recaptured again at Rocky. On Wednesday Pedder Bay also had a string of good luck with it’s first banded hairy woodpecker, western tanager, and red-breasted nuthatch of the season. The team even caught an adult male California quail!

An adult California quail at Pedder - Photo S.Darlington

Red-breasted nuthatch. Photo S. Darlington

We banded our first black-throated gray warbler of the season at Rocky on Thursday and a family of 4 river otters were spotted grooming and wrestling on the dock. Pedder Bay had another hairy woodpecker, a black-headed grosbeak, and a total of 14 bushtits in the nets :O

Cassin's vireo. Photo D. Bell.

After heavy rains Thursday night, volunteers were treated to some hard-to-open mist nets early Friday morning but the skies cleared and both stations had about 15 new birds banded. A bank swallow and baird’s sandpiper were observed at Rocky, and Pedder caught it’s third hairy woodpecker of the week and two western tanagers!

Finishing off the week, Pedder had it's first Cassin's vireo of the season.

The week ended in a close competition with Pedder banding 160 new birds of 30 species and Rocky Point with 175 of 27 species.

Wildlife Sightings

Though I personally have yet to hear the wolves this year, we did see fresh wolf scat and entrails at Rocky on Sunday July 28^th.

Pinniped skull found on census by Rick Shortinghuis at Rocky.

On Monday the 29^th Rick Shortinghuis and I heard strange shrieking at 4:40 am from the gates at Rocky, and then Rick found a fresh skull on his census route a few hours later – with no other remnants. We proceeded to watch the decomposition process over the next few days, though it started to smell pretty bad by the end of the week (sorry guys!). We debated and researched possible IDs – and consulted the twittersphere – before deciding the skull belonged to a harbour seal pup! Theories as to how this skull ended up in the field include wolf predation, and eagles snatching parts of an orca kill.

River Otter at Rocky. Photo S. Darlington.

Other sightings included up to 8 river otters at Rocky, a black bear around both stations, and plenty of adult deer and fawns.

Thank you to all of our volunteers for joining us at both stations. We are still looking to fill some spots this coming week, especially on Wednesday August 7^th and Friday August 9^th.

You never know what could happen at RPBO, it sure feels good to be back!

- Siobhan Darlington, Passerine Bander

Weekly Totals

Pedder Bay	Jul28	Jul 29	Jul 30	Jul 31	Aug 1	Aug2	Aug 3	Total
Banded	19	25	12	36	34	15	19	160
Species banded	10	12	7	21	16	12	11	30
Recap	8	7	2	5	10	7	8	47
Species recap	6	6	1	4	9	7	4	18


Rocky Point	Jul28	Jul 29	Jul 30	Jul 31	Aug 1	Aug 2	Aug 3	Total
Banded	41	15	19	32	30	14	24	175
Species banded	13	10	8	13	13	8	15	27
Recap	0	2	8	6	3	3	6	28
Species recap	0	2	6	5	3	2	5	12