Rocky Point Bird Observatory

Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Week 3: Big Pic(idae) Energy

Our ~~elder~~ senior bander, RG, birding on top of the Pedder Bay hill (Samuelle SP).

It's hard to believe that three weeks of fall migration banding have FLOWN by already! As a new member to the RPBO community, I am having a blast working with the many amazing volunteers and my awesome coworkers. I'd like to thank all the volunteers for their hard work every day - you all make our jobs as banders so much more fun and interesting every day! We have also had the joy of hosting more visitors this week! One of the best parts of our jobs is teaching volunteers and visitors about the amazing work we do, and we love the enthusiasm and curiosity from inquisitive minds that drop by! If you are interested in visiting our Pedder Bay station, you can sign up as a visitor on our Eventbrite site, here!

Our intern Liam showing his little brother how to hold a bird (Emma RL).

If you're an avid birder or bird bander, you will be well acquainted with the "August doldrums." If you aren't familiar with this term, basically August is often quite slow and quiet for the birds in the nets and around the station. Birds are not singing as actively as they were even two weeks ago, but the slower banding days offers us an opportunity to further appreciate what DOES make its way into our nets and our surrounding habitat.

Despite the lower numbers of birds this week, there is never a dull moment at the Rocky Point Bird Observatory. With a few spare ~~minutes~~ hours here and there, the banders, interns, and volunteers have been keeping themselves busy busy busy fixing nets, building new stairs (at Pedder Bay - thank you Mark Byrne!), decorating the banding board, and teaching new volunteers.

The interns added some art to the Rocky Point banding board. I will leave it up to you to figure out which were done by Liam and which by Rebecca RL (Samuelle SP).

So what were our highlight birds this week??!? The August doldrums could not stop biodiversity this week, that's for sure! We had some pretty darn sweet and spicy treats, offering views like no other of birds many people DREAM about. Week three ended with a BANG with a Cassin's Vireo at Rocky Point. This being the follow up act to the epic double trouble day on Monday when not only a Western Wood-Peewee was caught at Rocky Point, but a Pileated Woodpecker was caught only minutes later at Pedder Bay! We don't often catch these three species, and getting the opportunity to see them up close is a real privilege and a great fortune!

A stunning Cassin's Vireo. A creature of ENVY (David Bell).

A GORGEOUS Western Wood-Peewee looking REGAL (David Bell).

A lively Pileated Woodpecker showing off his underwing and somewhat crazy eyes (Samuelle SP).

This week also offered us lots of blackberries, some rain on Saturday, fallen trees blocking the road into Rocky Point on Sunday, and amphibians!! As usual, many deer hanging out around the stations - friendly banding friends... as long as they stay away from our nets! There are always lots of things going on to keep us on our toes out here!

A Rough-skinned Newt at Rocky Point (Samuelle SP).

Check out our daily and season totals below! While Rocky Point continues to lead for total number of birds banded, Pedder is squeaking in with a better species diversity for new birds banded. Stay tuned for next week's update! Any guesses for what the next fun surprise in the nets will be??

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Also check out the Bird Babble Podcast! https://birdbabblerpbo.podbean.com/

Wednesday, August 4, 2021

Week 2: Quiz Time

Rufous Hummingbird-David Bell

The weeks are flying by at RPBO. Week 2 has been a perfect time for quizzing the interns and not a day goes by without learning something new.

Are you a scribe at RPBO? Have you been wondering why the dedicated banders may take an extra few minutes banding a bird you have seen a hundred times? Well, this season we have added the WRP (Wolfe-Ryder-Pyle) code to our data collection. WRP is an alternative aging system based on molt cycles instead of the calendar year, and uses three-letter codes to define the plumage and molt cycle of the bird. At RPBO, we have historically used the calendar aging system (e.g. Hatch-Year and After-Hatch-Year) to age our birds during migration. This system works well when the individual is from a temperate region where there is generally one well-defined breeding season (i.e. spring/summer). If the bird breeds in a tropical region, where breeding seasons are not well defined, then the WRP aging system comes into play and is more useful than calendar year. Combining these two systems provides the most accurate means of categorizing age. Thanks for bearing with us while we learn these codes!

Now a quiz for you. Who are these two birds?

Rocky is on pace for a record high, with the season total of 542 beating last year’s record high of 517 as of the end of week two (average is 406). 220 new birds were banded there this week, above the average of 194 for the second week of migration.

Highlights this week include the first Downy Woodpecker for the season, along with a Hairy Woodpecker and a Northern Flicker. Now we are just waiting on that Pileated Woodpecker (fingers crossed)! Hints of fall migration are appearing with more Willow Flycatchers, MacGillivray’s Warblers, and a whopping 63 Wilson’s Warblers in the nets. Observation highlights include the first Wandering Tattler, Short-eared Owl, Short-billed Dowitcher and Common Nighthawk of the season. Seawatch opportunities have been almost non-existent due to fog in the early morning and heat haze later in the morning.

Another quiz...

Pedder, despite having a slow week of 145 new birds (average 185 for the second week), had the highlight bird of the week, a Cooper’s Hawk. Rebecca Reader-Lee got the banding tick for the hatch-year male bird. The banders at Pedder had their hands full this week with lots of hummingbirds; 13 Anna’s and 11 Rufous. Observation highlights include the seasons first Barred Owl, Lesser Yellowlegs, and Cassin’s Vireo.

Rebecca RL with the Cooper's Hawk-David Bell

Did you know we have a "tarantuloid" - a related type of tarantula here on Vancouver Island ?

The banders and volunteers at Pedder are becoming familiar with the Pacific folding trap-door Spider, Antrodiaetus pacificus . These arachnids are harmless and docile as shown here by bander Sam facing her fears.

Always handle with care as these
spiders can live up to 20 years old!-Rebecca Golat

Antrodiaetus pacificus-Samuelle Simard-Provençal

As always a huge thank you to our amazing volunteers. We had some new faces around the banding station and we were happy to teach what bird banding is all about! If you are interested in signing up to volunteer please apply here:

RPBO Volunteer Application Form

We are happy to have visitors this season and if you would like to visit the station please sign up here:

Pedder Bay Banding Station visits

Quiz Answers: Photo 1- House Wren (left), Bewick's Wren (right)

Photo 1- Hairy Woodpecker (left), Downy Woodpecker (right)

Wednesday, July 28, 2021

Week 1: 'Crowing' with delight

Welcome to the 2021 edition of the RPBO blog! As in past years, we (the banders) will be updating this page weekly with highlights, totals, and general goings-on at the two migration monitoring stations that we operate: Rocky Point (restricted access) and Pedder Bay. This year we are pleased to welcome back Rebecca Golat as our senior bander and myself, David Bell, as our bander-in-charge. We'd also like to give a warm welcome to Samuelle Simard-Provençal (our third bander) and our two interns, who many of you will recognize: Rebecca Reader-Lee and Liam Singh. We are all excited to see what this season has to offer! I'd also like to thank all of the volunteers who came out this week to help with running the stations - we had a good turnout and some nice birds for those who joined us!

Adult male Western Tanager (David Bell)

Rocky started the week off hot, with 73 birds on the 21st (second-highest opening day), while Pedder started with a new opening-day record low of 53. This trend continued, with Rocky setting a new first-week high of 322 new birds banded (average 230, previous record 305 in 2008). This was a bit of a surprise as strong winds kept the front nets closed most of the week! Pedder finished the week at 260, below the nine-year first week average of 279. As usual, Wilson’s Warbler, Pacific-slope Flycatcher and “Puget Sound” White-crowned Sparrows led the way for birds banded this week, with Song Sparrow and Swainson's Thrush not far behind. Although it had lower numbers, Pedder had slightly better diversity than Rocky this week.

Cedar Waxwing (Liam Singh)

ID quiz! Answer at the end of the post (David Bell)

Despite the relatively slow start, Pedder had a few highlights in the nets. On the 26^th, Sam and Rebecca were treated to two Belted Kingfishers in nets 10 and 11, and a Northern Rough-winged Swallow in net 8. On the 27^th, Sam added a new species to the RPBO banding list when a young American Crow paid a visit to the station! Rocky was a little lighter on the highlights, but Sam was excited to have not one, but two Olive-sided Flycatchers in one day on the 23^rd; a hatch-year and a second-year bird allowing for a nice comparison. A Red-breasted Sapsucker on the same day was the 5^th banding record for the site; although we see them regularly at both stations, for some reason only Pedder typically catches this species.

Sam and Rebecca with their Belted Kingfishers (Robyn Byrne)

Northern Rough-winged Swallow (Rebecca Golat)

Sam banding the American Crow (Rebecca Reader-Lee)

Although no rarities were seen this week, and fog on the strait hampered seawatch, we had a good diversity of species at both sites. Shorebird numbers are picking up, with Surfbird, Whimbrel, and Semipalmated Plover seen at Rocky along with numbers of the more common species. Warblers and flycatchers are also starting to move, with the first flyovers and small flocks making their rounds in the census areas. Many swallows have already cleared out, and small flocks were making their way south over the strait through the week.

Hatch-year Olive-sided Flycatcher (David Bell)

Other wildlife sightings in the past week have included a few Black Bears at Rocky among the commoner species like Eastern Cottontail, Black-tailed Deer, garter snakes, Blue-eyed and Common Green darners, etc. A family of Mink provided some entertainment at Rocky as they hopped around and wrestled near the station - we are hoping they don't get too familiar with the nets though!

Northwestern Garter Snake (Rebecca Reader-Lee)

On the 24^th, we had a special visitor at our Pedder Bay station, when the Honourable Janet Austin (Lieutenant Governor of BC) came for a tour of the census area and a banding demonstration. She quite enjoyed her visit, and thankfully we had some birds to show her; a good variety of sparrows, warblers, flycatchers and even two Anna’s Hummingbirds (one an adult male)! We are looking forward to her returning to see the owl program in action later this fall.

Our banding crew with the Honourable Janet Austin! (Jerymy Brownridge)

Pedder Bay	Jul 21st	22nd	23rd	24th	25th	26th	27th	Total
Banded	53	57	45	23	28	24	30	260
Species banded	22	23	16	11	16	12	18	35
Recap	2	5	5	6	6	10	4	38
Species recap	2	3	4	4	4	4	4	10

Rocky Point	Jul 21st	22nd	23rd	24th	25th	26th	27th	Total
Banded	73	58	50	45	36	39	21	322
Species banded	20	18	18	17	17	14	9	32
Recap	3	9	6	8	3	4	4	37
Species recap	2	4	4	5	3	4	2	12

(click to enlarge)

Quiz Answer: hatch-year Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon subspecies group)