Marsh volunteers to the rescue!!!!!

Sylvain and Rachelle Plante to the rescue !!!

Once again serendipity is in full play at the marsh. Serendipity basically means occurs by chance  and it really has been the story of my life and adds a great story line to some of the things that happen at the marsh. The other thing i know to be true at the marsh is that volunteers are the heart and soul of the marsh. While I am on a moment of self reflection or perhaps confession most people that have seen me at the marsh have never seen me using a tool. That is due to my terrible tool using allergy or just a basic incompetence in the ability to render anything useful out of my efforts. I due however make a great gopher. I can go for almost anything and with careful instruction and description can find a tool that is needed and often welcome  the chance to get away from the project .

prefabbed pieces being placed together

     Well that is quite a preamble to get the real story going here . While we were away at Long point bird observatory during the  the Ontario bird banding  conference in April we were lamenting the the loss of our previous J-trap. The past J-trap that was built by past TERRA students  succumbed to the elements due to lack of funding  poor design, an an adult who was allergic to tools. Last year we did not have a j-trap to help us continue on our research on  red-winged blackbirds and grackles. While we can catch other species  in the trap such as american tree sparrows  and other seed eating birds our specific research goal was to continue with our work on the blackbirds.  To this end  we managed to set aside some funds and are actively fund raising to offset the cost of building a new j trap and while down at long point we took all sorts of measurements on their trap so we could duplicate it when we got home. Come to think of it I was not allowed to use the tape measure  so lets say Mark , Ethan, and Chris took measurements.

Looking inside the trap past the baffles  and waiting for ramp to be put in place

     Shortly after arriving home we were contacted by a couple that had not been to the marsh since their son was quite young and was involved in a youth Saturday program we called marsh" bandits". There son has grown  up and they were looking for a project in the winter to give them something to do before it was time to open the cottage. The best part is that they knew how to use tools. The even better best part is that they had all of the tools  and a big garage to take on the project. It was like ........ well you know serendipity!!!!

Sylvain pondering his next move 

      So in a previous blog we looked at the prefab of the j trap but on Saturday and Sunday the j trap  went up. Now we only have to form the funnels which are in the shape of a "j" which is where the j trap get its name. It is through these entrance funnels that the birds get to the corn and cannot find there way back out. The trap is also designed to funnel birds into a collection box that is designed to sort the smaller birds from larger birds by having three shelves of different sizes that makes sure smaller birds do not have larger birds sitting on top of them. In the end we decided to go with a design used at Prince Edward bird observatory and hopefully we will have a chance to try it out soon.
     I have to admit building  it was a lot of fun and I can tell you a great deal of time and consideration went into the design and how the mesh was installed to make sure that no injury could come to the birds. We purchased all the supply's for the trap at the Earlton Timbermart except the plastic mesh which turned out to be an item only sold at home depot. The other observatories felt it was the best material for the safety of the birds so we had I had to travel to north bay to get this special mesh sometime gophers have to travel long distances!

completed  trap 23 feet long 6 feet wide 

      So thanks so much to Rachelle and Sylvain Plante for all of their time  and joy. It is such a pleasure to see a couple having fun together when trouble shooting is  going on. I understand  that putting up wallpaper can be a challenge for couples. I have never  experienced that joy, but figuring out how to finish the mesh so that bird safety and durability goals are satisfied is a challenge. They clearly were having fun and there was lots of laughter throughout the entire project even when Rachelle's feet were wet!!!  The marsh is lucky to have such great people helping us out.
      I thought it was interesting that the first day we were putting up the trap we had no birds  near us but in the final hours a flock of about 100 american tree sparrows found the corn I had been putting on a small square of plywood to attract them to the area. The timing could not be better . The migration is on and we are ready to go !!!

Other side notice the doors o collection box for getting birds out