Week 12: They call them Turdus migratorius for a reason!

Red-tailed Hawk - Siobhan Darlington

Week 12 was a beautiful week of fall weather with many lovely birds.

Banding highlights

Swamp Sparrow - David Bell

Despite the season slowing down and drawing to a close, we still managed to have some excitement this week. The week started with Rocky Point catching the first Northern Saw Whet owl of the season during regular banding hours. Saw whets are not a common catch during the day and are always a delight to get to see in the light of day, especially when they stick around after banding like this cute little owl did giving everyone there that day a great look!

Rocky also banded its first Anna’s Hummingbird of the season this week, this was also only the second ever Anna’s banded at the station! This highlights one of the many differences between the Pedder bay and Rocky Point banding stations, where Rocky Point had just the two in its history, Pedder has nearly 50 just this season!

The overall bird numbers are pretty low at this point in the year with most of the sparrows and warblers already gone, however, the kinglets are still on the rise with the overall total finally hitting and surpassing 300 individuals between both Pedder bay and Rocky Point!

White-throated Sparrow - David Bell

Adult Northern Goshawk -  Siobhan Darlington

Despite most of the White-crowned and Golden-crowned sparrows having left, we are still catching some of the less common sparrows, with both Pedder Bay and Rocky Point banding another two swamp sparrows. This was the first of the season for Pedder Bay and both stations got several more White-throated sparrows.

New Arrivals, Census, and Observations:

Northern Saw Whet Owl - David Bell

There was still a lot of migration activity observed this week even if it wasn’t fully reflected in the catch total. This was highlighted on October 6^th , the e-bird global big day, with 109 species being observed, including Rocky Point's second record of a Smith’s Longspur! A rare visitor to the coast of British Columbia. Though, sadly, this individual was not cooperative enough to give anyone a photo opportunity.

There were also major movements of robins all week with the peak occurring on Wednesday when we estimated 1800 individuals flying over the station at Rocky Point and out over the strait! Rocky Point also saw its first Palm Warbler of the season on the 12^th October, hopefully, it finds its way into the nets this week! Raptors also continued to put on a good show over Rocky Point with Golden Eagles and a stunning adult Northern Goshawk making appearances. As well,  one day  nearly 50 Red-tailed Hawks were circling with the 200 or so remaining Turkey Vultures that have not yet headed south.

Wildlife Sightings

The wolves continued to be heard this week with their howls echoing across the meadows several mornings.  Both Humpback whales and Orcas continued to frequent the waters off of Rocky Point.

Week 12 numbers

Rocky Point	06-oct	07-oct	08-oct	09-oct	10-oct	11-oct	12-oct	Total
Banded	31	27	29	37	60	35	29	248
Species banded	13	9	6	11	14	9	11	30
Recap	3	5	15	7	7	9	6	52
Species Recap	3	4	7	6	5	6	5	12
Pedder Bay	06-oct	07-oct	08-oct	09-oct	10-oct	11-oct	12-oct	Total
Banded	24	28	8	14	34	56	26	190
Species banded	14	14	7	8	9	15	10	24
Recap	4	9	6	7	9	10	12	57
Species Recap	4	7	4	4	6	7	6	15

Week 11 : More "surprise" to come ...

Kim, Daniel & Ann at the Hawkwatch on saturday

This week has started by a "scandalous" hawkwatch on saturday at East Sooke Park 😎Lot of people were at the "rendezvous" but the hawks were a bit shy. No big kettle of Turkey Vultures as we used to see them at Rocky Point the previous week...

For banding, on average/day we had 36 new bands at RP and 27 new bands at PB with slow days on Monday and Tuesday. The best day was on Thurday with 59 new at RP and 56 at PB. We didn't catch any Steller's Jay or Varied Thrush yet :-( Sio, Dave and I are waiting for them, hopefully we'll get them before the end of the season... only two more weeks ! 

SWSP (Blair Dubeck)

I was told that the highlight of this week was a Swamp Sparrow (SWSP) banded a Rocky Point this rainy friday ! Personnaly I went (again) on the "dark side" of banding to meet the adorable Saw-whet Owls 😍

We've reached a total of 5 000 individuals banded between both stations... The species winner of the week in both station is decisively Ruby Crowned Kinglet with 71 banded at RP and 30 at PB. We have also banded a fair amount of Oregon Junco (16 at RP and 28 at PB), Spotted Towhee (34 at RP and 7 at PB), Hermit Thrush (12 at RP and 34), Yellow-rumped Warbler (26 at RP and 12 at PB), Golden Crowned Kinglet (16 at RP and 6 at PB) and Pacific Wren (11 at RP and 3 at PB). Regarding the Yellow-rumped Warbler, it was a mix of "Myrtle" and "Audubon" with sometime some hybrids containing characteristics of both subspecies.

This time of year, trees are full of kinglets, we are seeing a tons of band tailed pigeons and a lot of robin flying over both stations. We've also seen and heard the beautiful call of Sandhill Cranes flying in V-shape over Rocky Point, as White-fronted geese, Cackling geese and Snow geese as well. 

Blair trying to make a new feather friend - Snow Gosse at Rocky Point on Tuesday 2nd

Our volunteer Kiara & Chris Sukha

If you came out in the field recently, you've probably met Chris Sukha who were visiting RPBO this year again between his way from Mackenzie Bird Observatory, BC to Ontario. We were glad to host such a knowledge bander helping us both with the passerine migration and with owls ! Thank you for your help Chris.

Ivy banding a NSWO

I would like to thanks Ivy Doak as well. A really nice volunteer coming for a few years and helping both with passerine and owl. I was glad to see her on her last shift wednesday night ! Hope to see you again next year ;-)

And the last but not least, our wonderful board people with a special mention for Ann Scarfe who is always trying to make everyone's life easier. She's doing an incredible work with the schedule and filling the gap coming out in the field a lot of time ! Thanks so much :-)

That's it for this week. I'm really grateful to work here in such a nice team and to meet all of you, folks 🙏 See you soon 😊 Donna

Ann Scarfe coming back at the station with a few birds

Rocky Point	29-sept	30-sept	01-oct	02-oct	03-oct	04-oct	05-oct	Total
Banded	50	30	25	15	47	59	29	255
Species banded	17	15	9	8	17	13	12	30
Recap	10	7	4	2	2	5	1	31
Species Recap	7	3	3	2	2	4	1	12
Pedder Bay	29-sept	30-sept	01-oct	02-oct	03-oct	04-oct	05-oct	Total
Banded	24	28	8	14	34	56	26	190
Species banded	14	14	7	8	9	15	10	24
Recap	4	9	6	7	9	10	12	57
Species Recap	4	7	4	4	6	7	6	15