Rocky Point Bird Observatory: Week 13: A Not-So Ivory Gull and Subspecies Suprises

With week 13 in the books, the season winds down to a close. As always, the final week of banding is bittersweet. Staff and volunteers are ready for a little reprise from pre-dawn alarms, Spotted Towhee bitten fingers and endless loads of feather-full laundry. However, the beautiful sunrises, good birds, and better friends will be sorely missed… until next season!

One of the final sunrises of the season. (Evan Lewis)

This week Pedder Bay banded 136 new birds of 18 species, bringing the season total to 3163 new birds. Ruby-crowned Kinglet took the top spot this week, with 24 individuals banded. Fox sparrow and Golden-crowned sparrow followed closely behind with 22 and 19 individuals banded respectively. Highlight birds for Pedder this week included this male Anna’s Hummingbird, sporting a gorgeous full gorget, and a very cool Fox Sparrow recapture.

A male Anna's Hummingbird. (David Bell)

One of the most exciting parts of banding is the potential for recapturing birds banded in previous years. Not only is it incredibly cool to see old birds, but the knowledge we gain from these records is highly valuable in developing survivorship curves and longevity data for birds. Everyone enjoys pulling a recaptured bird from a bag and noticing that the band is worn, and you don’t recognize number string. At Pedder this week, the banders had the pleasure of recapturing a Fox Sparrow that was banded as a hatch-year in 2015, making it 8 years old! The longevity record for this species is not far off at 10 years, so hopefully this individual keeps coming back for another couple of years!

The 8 year-old Fox Sparrow. See you in a couple of years to break the record! (Evan Lewis)

Rocky Point’s last week was unfortunately shortened due to military activity on Monday-Wednesday. However, the beginning of the week still gave us a good showing, with 146 new birds of 22 species banded for a season total of 4220. It is quite uncommon for Rocky Point to surpass 4000 birds banded in a season, so it is nice to see that we recovered from the slow start to the season! 34 newly banded Golden-crowned Sparrows took the top spot at Rocky Point this week, with Ruby-crowned Kinglets and Spotted Towhees coming in next with 31 and 22 individuals banded respectively. Highlight birds for Rocky this week included a Slate-coloured Junco. An uncommon visitor to coastal BC, this subspecies of Dark-eyed Junco is usually found in more Boreal Habitat, from Alaska and Northern BC across to eastern Canada.

A Slate-coloured Junco (or maybe an SCJUxORJU?) (James Kennerley)

A range map of Dark-Eyed Junco subspecies (and a few other junco species for good measure).
Aleixandre, Pau & Hernández-Montoya, J.C. & Mila, Borja. (2013). Speciation on Oceanic Islands: Rapid Adaptive Divergence vs. Cryptic Speciation in a Guadalupe Island Songbird (Aves: Junco). PloS one. 8. e63242. 10.1371/journal.pone.0063242.

Rocky Point banded its 3rd rare warbler of the season this week, a Nashville Warbler! Unlike the individual banded earlier this season at Pedder Bay, a combination of plumage characteristics and a short tail made this week’s bird the eastern nominate subspecies Leiothlypis ruficapilla ruficapilla.

An eastern Nashville Warbler. (David Bell)

The final week around the stations were certainly quieter, but there were still good birds to be found. On October 13th, David Bell had a pigment-deficient Short-billed Gull at Rocky Point. Had Daniel Donnecke not reported the same bird from seawatch at Beechey Head a few days earlier, this certainly would have caused some heart attacks, as the resemblance to an Ivory Gull is striking! On October 14th Ian Cruickshank and James Kennerley had a Pine Grosbeak fly over the station at Rocky Point. This represents the first record for RPBO, as most Pine Grosbeak records for southern Vancouver Island occur later in the year and get missed by the banding crew!

The very ivory Short-billed Gull. (David Bell)

And with that, we're done for the season. The final bird of the season was banded (A hatch-year American Robin) and the passerine nets have been taken down. A huge thank you goes out to all of the incredibly dedicated volunteers who have contributed their time this season. We really could not do it without all of you, and the staff are all incredibly appreciative of your hard work. If you aren't quite ready to be done for the year, the owl program is still going until Halloween, and they could use your help. We'll see you all next season!