Week 4 - Coming to Rocky: like a summer vacation :)

 

Today wraps up our fourth week of migration monitoring at Rocky Point Bird Observatory.

As we are awaiting a greater number of ­birds from the north on their southern migration, people have described Pedder and Rocky as feeling like a “summer holiday” and a “place to enjoy nature” this week. We have enjoyed warm dry weather and breezes cooling us down, varying from gentle to gusty.

Sunrise at our "vacation spot" (photo: David Bell)

With obs on slower days, we have enjoyed birds learning how to be birds this week. The goldfinches almost never stop begging their parents. Many funny sounding songs have been heard from White-crowned Sparrows, Chestnut-backed Chickadees, and the occasional Orange-crowned Warbler.  Their singing voices aren't quite "right" yet! An adorable fledgling Pine Siskin, which we named “Freddie”, was seen repeatedly (5+ times per day) landing on the Rocky Point banding station roof or picnic table and begging for food from its parents which could be seen in nearby trees. Freddie hopped about and tried to eat the plastic roof and the shingles over the battery cover — to no avail.

 

 On the roof, Freddie waiting to be fed. (photo credit Emma Reader-Lee)

 

Yum, that's the stuff (photo credit: Cathy Reader)

 

Most common flycatcher banded:  Pacific-slope (57 at RP, 11 at PB)

Most common sparrow: White-crowned (23 at RP, 56 at PB)

Most common warbler: Wilson’s (25 at RP, 13 at PB)

Most common thrush: Swainson’s (4 at RP, 8 at PB)

Most common hummingbird: Anna’s (1 at RP, 7 at PB)

Most common finch: American Goldfinch (8 at RP, 1 at PB)

Most common wren: House (6 at RP, 6 at PB)

Most commonly observed swallow: Barn (haven’t caught yet!)

Prettiest banded: Cedar Waxwing (in my opinion)

 

Cedar Waxwing (photo credit: Rick Hardy)

Station vs. Station!

Pedder Banding

At Pedder Bay, between 18 and 51 birds were banded daily, with 5 to 14 recaps per day.

Season firsts that really make it seem like fall is coming were caught at Pedder Bay-- a Varied Thrush and a Lincoln's Sparrow ! The station's first Yellow and Black-throated Gray warblers were also banded.

A cute little “Puget Sound” White-crowned Sparrow showed up in the nets with a little "Santa Claus" beard of leucistic throat feathers.

 

You could call it a "white-throated" White-crowned (warning: not really a hybrid) (photo credit: Emma Radziul) 

Rocky Banding

Over the past week, at Rocky Point, between 19 and 53 new birds were banded daily, with 3 to 8 recaps per day.

A notable banded bird was a White-crowned Sparrow that was banded as an after hatch-year in 2016, making it at least 5 years old. The season's first pure “Red-shafted” Flicker and Violet-green Swallow were banded, as were RP's first Hammond's Flycatchers. Here’s hoping for more swallows!

An old White-crowned sparrow, in a mix of worn and newly molting feathers (photo credit: Donna Talluto)

 

What a cool body and wing shape! Excellent bird (Violet-green Swallow, photo credit: Rebecca Golat)

Observations

At Rocky Point, the Gray Catbird continues to be heard almost daily, mewing between nets 3 and 4. It comes out of the dense shrubs to give us brief looks occasionally. 

Highlights seen were a Sora (which actually flew into the top panel of net 4 then bounced out on the 14th!), and a flyby Brown Pelican and Pacific Golden-Plover on the same day!

Shorebirds have been seen on the front shorelines, including: Black Oystercatcher, Semipalmated Plover, Killdeer, Black Turnstone, Least, Western and Spotted sandpipers, Short-billed and Long-billed dowitchers, Surfbird and Greater and Lesser yellowlegs. An impressive 12 species seen.

On the water, Rhinoceros Auklets, Pigeon Guillemots and occasionally Marbled Murrelets continue to be seen, in addition to increased numbers of Common Murres. Three Humpback Whales were also seen this week.

Also teasing us on Obs was a nighthawk flying close to net 1 just before opening on several days. Let's catch it!

Other changes noted as the season progresses: Anna's Hummingbird has overtaken Rufous as most commonly banded hummingbird this week, we have observed an increasing number of raptors, especially Turkey Vultures, and there are increasing numbers of leaves in the nets.

Some early season migrants disappearing:

- Olive-sided flycatcher

- Brown-headed cowbird

- Black-headed grosbeak

Thank-yous

- Thank you to Mark who stepped in on Aug 12th, at short notice and when all others could not, to extract birds at Pedder Bay. You are such a dedicated and versatile team-member!

- Thank you to Anna who came out to scribe at RP the day before you returned to veterinary school. You're a pleasure to work with, one of the best scribes!

	Rocky Point Site
Banded	53	46	33	44	34	26	26	19
Species	14	13	14	13	17	14	11	9
Recaps	5	8	4	6	4	3	7	2
Species	3	8	3	4	2	3	7	2

 

 

	Pedder Bay Site
Banded	34	31	18	45	24	51	25	22
Species	18	17	9	17	17	20	11	12
Recaps	14	6	5	6	10	7	5	10
Species	5	3	2	4	7	5	4	7

Week 3 – Distracting mammals

Hello Birders, Banders and Bird Lovers. 

At both sites we had continuing above average numbers of birds with a total of 745 new bands at Rocky Point and 639 at Pedder Bay. To date this is the second most birds that have been banded, only in 2000 were there more. Fall is in the air as we continue to see more and more raptors every day. Red-Tailed hawks, Merlin, American Kestrels, Peregrine Falcon and Northern Harriers have all been seen. Also around are lots of Turkey Vulture, with one special bird now back in the air. Last year, while leaving Rocky Point, Rebecca Golat along with Dave, Siobhan and Mitchell found and retrieved a Turkey Vulture from the side of Rocky Point Road. After a trip to Wild Arc, we can gladly say the bird was released last month after a year in recovery, so keep your bins up looking for TUVU. 

The wildlife taking interest in wildlife monitoring(David Bell)

Pedder set the pace with 19 new hummingbirds banded this week, 8 Anna’s and 11 Rufous. Also noteworthy for Pedder Bay are three species of woodpecker being banded, 1 Downy woodpecker, 1 Red-breasted sapsucker and 2 Hairy woodpeckers. The highlight of the week for Pedder, however, was a Type 4 Red crossbill, two Type 3s were banded earlier in the season taking the total to 3 for the year. The Type 4 Red crossbill was a third record for Pedder Bay.

Type 4 Red crossbill (David Bell)

Rocky Point banded the first Savannah sparrows of the year, with three new birds being banded. Two Black-throated gray warblers were also banded at Rocky Point, bringing the season total to 3. Another Red-winged blackbird also made its way into the nets, which provided some entertainment for the local deer as they stood and watch the extraction. Both stations are catching large numbers of Puget Sound White-crowned sparrows, with 49 at Rocky Point and 30 at Pedder Bay.

The new season observations this week include Black-bellied plover and Long-billed dowitcher for Rocky Point and Black Swift for both stations. Shorebirds have been showing up at Rocky Point in pretty good numbers and diversity including; Western sandpiper, Least sandpiper, Greater yellowlegs, Lesser yellowlegs, and Semipalmated plover. The Yellow-Billed Loon has been spotted again and the Gray catbird has been heard several times at Rocky Point as well. 

 The 4th Olive-sided flycatcher of the season.(David Bell)

What really stole the show this week was a wonderful visit from some mammals! First with a sighting of the lone wolf swimming from one of the rocky islands to shore, making a close pass by the Black-bellied Plover who did not seem to mind this large predator. After the wolf walked up shore, an Anna's hummingbird buzzed around his face until he had enough and took off back up the beach. Those hummingbirds are not scared of much! David Bell spotted a Gray whale which was also spotted the same day by Mark and Robyn Byrne with Daniel Donnecke over at Beechey Head for seawatch. A family of river otters has been seen a few times as well as our resident Sea Otter. The deer at Pedder Bay have made it their pastime to put holes in our nets. 

The resident Sea Otter "Ollie" (Rebecca Reader-Lee)

An exciting day for two of our long-time volunteers happened last Saturday. Rebecca and Emma Reader-Lee had their very first shift at Rocky Point! The two young birders have been volunteering since 2013 and now that Rebecca has reached the age requirement for entry to Rocky the two sisters were very excited about their first day. And Rocky did not disappoint. They both got great looks at the Sea Otter and Rebecca Reader-Lee managed to get a quick look at the lone wolf. They also got to see a Common nighthawk fly dangerously close to net 1 and 2 first thing in the morning. Maybe they will catch it next time!

Emma and Rebecca Reader-Lee's
first Rocky Point shift.

Most banders have a list of banding “ticks” and have birds they dream of banding. This year, all four of the banders have their eye on one common bird that is uncommonly banded. A Pileated woodpecker! One has not been banded since 2004 and only 7 have been banded in the 10 years before that at Rocky Point and only one at Pedder Bay. So, is it possible? Well last year we got a Brown shrike so anything could happen! Which bander do you think is feeling lucky this year? 

Week 2 - Second week, and a week of seconds

After a pretty exciting first week of the season, the birds slowed down a bit during week two, although not nearly as much as expected. Relatively heavy nocturnal movements (seen on radar) were mirrored by some relatively busy days at the stations. Only the 31st at Pedder and the 3rd at Rocky dipped below 20 new banded birds (the latter due to rain), compared with half of our days in the last few years dipping below this threshold for the second week of monitoring!

Sunrise at Rocky Point (Rebecca Golat)

Pedder led the way in hummingbirds banded this week (five of each species), and also had our first Northern Flicker (a juvenile male intergrade) and Hammond's Flycatcher banded for the season. White-crowned Sparrows (26), Pacific-slope Flycatchers (18), Wilson's Warblers (17) and Spotted Towhees (15) topped the charts for the week in terms of number banded, while American Robins and Swainson's Thrushes also put in a good showing. The oldest bird of the week award goes to a Swainson's Thrush that was originally banded here in August 2014 as a hatch-year, making it six years old! The runner-up was a female "Puget Sound" White-crowned Sparrow banded in August 2017 as an after hatch-year, making her at least four years old. The major highlight, however, was an Olive-sided Flycatcher that Rebecca banded on the 1st - a second banding record for Pedder, just a few days after the first.

Intergrade Northern Flicker (Emma Radziul)

Rocky had our first Pacific Wren of the season, but the nets there were dominated by Pacific-slope Flycatchers (74) and Wilson's Warblers (53). Only two other species broke double-digits for the week: MacGillivray's Warbler with 14 and American Goldfinch with 13! Perhaps unsurprisingly, based on this stat, daily diversity in the nets was lower than at Pedder. August 3rd was also our first day impacted by rain - with only a little over half of the possible net hours realized, it is no surprise we struggled to hit the 20-bird mark. On the recapture front, we had two birds that were originally banded there in 2018: a White-crowned Sparrow and a Purple Finch, both banded as hatch-years making them two years old now. The highlight of the week was our first rarity of the season in the nets - a Gray Catbird! I initially heard it on census on the 1st, but it successfully avoided our nets until the next morning when Rebecca was the lucky bander to get it. This is the first record for fall migration monitoring at RPBO - one was banded in 2006 during a spring banding session here, making it the second overall. It is also likely that it has been around for a while - a few of us have been hearing a strange call from the net 4 area for a few days now (this catbird seems to not be making typical mew calls, rather a raspy call that sounds a bit like a strangled Towhee). 

Gray Catbird (Rebecca Golat)

On obs this week, some 'new for the season' birds included a Ring-billed Gull at Pedder, while Rocky hogged all the shorebirds, adding Surfbird, Baird's Sandpiper and Short-billed Dowitcher along with decent numbers of peeps. The highlight was a Yellow-billed Loon that drifted by Rocky on the 29th - quite an unusual sighting for summer here and likely a first record for RPBO during migration monitoring (two other records for Rocky in Dec 1999 and Nov 2003 outside of the monitoring window, and at least two have been seen during seawatch from East Sooke Park).

One old Swainson's Thrush! (Rebecca Golat)

Non-avian observations of the week were topped by a nice encounter with the resident wolf pack, with four individuals in the front bay at low tide just after net opening on the 1st and several instances of howling were heard from the back meadow. The local Sea Otter was spotted a few times over the week, off Edye Point and at the front. A neat spider with a freshly-hatched egg sac and loads of babies on its back was hanging out by net 10 at Pedder one day (more below).

One of five new 'easter eggs' to find while out on net runs - you'll have to find the other four yourself! (David Bell)

In other news, a mysterious elf left some decorations around our net runs, bringing a splash of colour and inspiration to an otherwise mostly brown landscape. Our MAPS season at Witty's Lagoon came to an end, finishing with 299 new bands and 84 recaptures (just couldn't get one more, eh Jannaca?). Seawatch this week was rather foggy, but the crew on Friday managed a decent number of gulls and murres. For those on iNaturalist, a project has been created to capture all of the sightings at our Pedder Bay station - see how many observations you've submitted here: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/rpbo-pedder-bay, and feel free to click 'join'!

Not a bird! Add your observations to iNaturalist to have them count toward the Pedder Bay collection project (David Bell)

Pedder Bay	Jul 28th	29th	30th	31st	Aug 1st	2nd	3rd	Total
Banded	38	23	36	17	45	28	29	216
Species banded	17	12	17	10	19	15	15	31
Recap	4	3	6	5	7	3	12	40
Species recap	3	3	4	3	5	3	6	14

Rocky Point	Jul 28th	29th	30th	31st	Aug 1st	2nd	3rd	Total
Banded	35	44	43	43	23	23	16	227
Species banded	12	14	17	12	6	9	8	26
Recap	6	4	2	13	6	2	4	37
Species recap	4	2	1	9	5	2	3	11

Week 2 stats - click to enlarge