We’ve wrapped up week 3 at RPBO and are excited to share a few highlights, season-firsts, and the weekly stats. We are off to a great start so far this season—Pedder Bay’s totals for this point in the season are the second highest all-time with 670 new birds banded. The Rocky Point station has banded 719 new birds so far, just missing the podium at 4th place all-time. Week 3 banding totals at Rocky Point and Pedder Bay were a touch higher than average, with 262 and 168 new birds banded respectively. Wilson’s Warblers are still on top this week for most numerous species with 63 banded at Rocky Point and 28 at Pedder Bay. Pacific-slope Flycatchers weren’t far behind though, with 57 banded at Rocky Point (38 of which were banded on August 10th!) and 21 banded at Pedder Bay. White-crowned Sparrows were our third most numerous species with 35 banded at Rocky Point and 18 banded at Pedder Bay. Three more Brown-headed Cowbirds banded at Rocky Point this week put us just one away from the all-time high of 26, with plenty of time left in the season to break the record. This week provided a few season-firsts, with seven new species banded including Red-breasted Nuthatch, Brown Creeper, Townsend’s Warbler and a handful of highlight species we’ll talk about in detail.
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| High tide and early morning light in the bay at Rocky Point (Evan Lewis) |
Our first highlight of the week was this Cassin’s Vireo banded at Pedder Bay on August 4th. This is a species that is possible to miss during migration banding at RPBO, so it was nice to see this hatch-year bird!
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| A hatch-year Cassin's Vireo banded at Pedder Bay (David Bell) |
Next up, a Belted Kingfisher was caught at Rocky Point. It was quite a burst of activity when this bird found its way into the net. Fortunately, David happened to be looking out towards the front nets as two Kingfishers chased one another down the net lanes. A frantic radio call had Evan sprinting towards net 2, where one of the birds had gotten caught! This hatch-year female was the 6th record for the Rocky Point station, the first since 2010, and a banding tick for Evan.
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| A hatch-year female Belted Kingfisher banded at Rocky Point (David Bell) |
Pedder Bay had another exciting capture on August 9th. On the final net round of the day, a Northern Waterthrush was caught in net 13! This hatch-year was the 7th record for Pedder Bay, and we usually only get one per season here at RPBO (hence the title!).
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| A hatch-year Northern Waterthrush banded at Pedder Bay (David Bell) |
Finally, for our last highlight species of the week, we have our first raptor of the season—a Cooper’s Hawk! This hatch-year male was caught in net 8 up on the hill to the excitement of everyone at the station. This was a new banding tick for Aiva, but you’ll have to check back next week for her to tell the full story!
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One of our interns, Aiva, demonstrating the "ice-cream cone"
raptor grip before release (Rebecca Golat) |
We’re happy to report the Rocky Point resident Olive-sided Flycatcher family seems to be doing well. This week garnered us looks at 3 chicks in the nest with lots of provisioning coming from the parents. We’ll keep you updated, maybe we’ll get lucky and get to band one of the fledglings!
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| A nestling Olive-sided Flycatcher poking its head out of the nest (David Bell) |
Observations this week provided a few interesting sightings. Shorebirds are showing up in larger numbers at Rocky Point and this week we recorded Surfbirds, a Ruddy Turnstone, and a Whimbrel along with the usual crowd of Western and Least Sandpipers. Good sea watching conditions gave us looks at a fly-by Brown Pelican in the scope and plenty of Common Murres, Rhinoceros Auklets, and Pigeon Guillemots. Other wildlife sightings included humpback whales, harbour porpoises and harbour seals.
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| Daily statistics for Pedder Bay and Rocky Point |
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| Weekly Statistics and totals for both stations (click to enlarge) |
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