Off and on rain this week didn't stop the birds, and we had a rather steady flow of migration throughout the last week of the season. Owl monitoring continues until the end of October; although it has been a low year, there are probably still a few on their way south!
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| Drizzly days meant lots of rainbows over Rocky! (David Bell) |
At Pedder, the junco party continued with 56 individuals banded; topping the charts for the week and bringing us to a season total of 331, shattering the previous record of 264 set in 2016. Other top captures were Fox Sparrow (46) and Ruby-crowned Kinglet (39). Our first Swamp Sparrow, second Varied Thrush, and 7th, 8th and 9th Northern Flickers of the season were the other highlights for the week here. Surprisingly, the oldest bird of the week award went not to a sparrow, but to a Hermit Thrush originally banded here 17 Oct 2015 as a hatch-year, making it five years old!
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| Pedder's first and only Swamp Sparrow of 2020 (Rebecca Golat) |
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| Up close and personal with an Anna's Hummingbird (David Bell) |
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| An intergrade Northern Flicker - a good reminder that yellow shafts do not always equal "Yellow-shafted"! (Liam Singh) |
At Rocky, none of our volunteers will be surprised to learn that Ruby-crowned Kinglets were the top capture this week with 84 banded. Rounding out the top three were also crowned birds: Golden-crowned Kinglet (33) and Golden-crowned Sparrow (25). A single House Finch was our only new species for the year, but we also caught our second Sharp-shinned Hawk and third Townsend's Warbler of the season. Oldest recaps here were a Spotted Towhee banded in 2017 as a hatch-year (three years old now), and a Ruby-crowned Kinglet banded in 2018 as an after-hatch-year, making it at least three years old!
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| Ruby-crowned Kinglet showing off those orange feet (Liam Singh) |
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| Varied Thrush (Liam Singh) |
New arrivals for the season at Pedder were Golden Eagle (seen after standard period unfortunately!), Swamp Sparrow, Cackling Goose and Lapland Longspur, while Rocky added Lesser Scaup, Snow Goose, Golden Eagle, Ancient Murrelet, Black-legged Kittiwake and Cassin's Auklet - late fall has definitely arrived! There were still a few warblers hanging on this week, and there are still a few species yet to arrive that we missed for the season (Rough-legged Hawk, Northern Shrike, Snow Bunting to name a few), but overall migration is on its last legs for this year - just the waterfowl, gulls, seabirds and a few more wintering species left to arrive!
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| Pedder waterfall in fine form (Emma Radziul) |
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| This juvenile Snow Goose kept us company on seawatch at Rocky on our last day (David Bell) |
Our non-avian highlights for this week were definitely topped by the return of the wolf pack. After mostly seeing the lone wolf and hearing distant howling all season, a total of nine(!) individuals were seen together on the 16th. I guess they know we are almost done for the year and are making their way back into 'our' space. Near-daily sightings of Humpbacks were the other main highlight of the week. Surprisingly this season went by with very few bear sightings - only two or three at each station; compare that with the 'herds' we usually get feasting on acorns daily in October!
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| A buck heralding the dawn on the Pedder hill (David Bell) |
As mentioned, owl monitoring goes until the end of the month; so far our nocturnal banders have caught around 500 Northern Saw-whet Owls, five Barred Owls and a single Long-eared Owl! Let's hope the owls keep moving through on these colder nights.
Finally, a huge thank-you to all of our volunteers, the RPBO board members and my fellow banders for making this another great season! Despite reduced staffing due to the ongoing pandemic we managed to have quite a smooth season, with above-average numbers of birds at both stations. If the table below doesn't work for you, we ended up with 3622 banded at Rocky Point and 3257 at Pedder Bay for the 2020 season.
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| Fall colours at the end of Migration! (Donna Talluto) |
Rocky Point
| Oct 13th | 14th | 15th | 16th | 17th | 18th | Total | |
Banded
| 43 | 61 | 66 | 21 | 56 | 25 | 272 | |
Species banded
| 15 | 13 | 19 | 7 | 14 | 10 | 26 | |
Recap
| 6 | 9 | 14 | 1 | 9 | 8 | 47 | |
Species recap
| 5 | 5 | 7 | 1 | 6 | 7 |
Pedder Bay
| Oct 13th | 14th | 15th | 16th | 17th | 18th | Total | |
Banded
| 20 | 37 | 56 | 21 | 48 | 27 | 209 | |
Species banded
| 8 | 9 | 14 | 8 | 10 | 9 | 20 | |
Recap
| 5 | 13 | 8 | 5 | 17 | 9 | 56 | |
Species recap
| 4 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 7 | 4 |
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| (click to enlarge) |
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