choices by joanne hamilton

Joanne with a long eared she just banded 

Choices

The sliver of moon soars high in the sky, a crude mimic of the noonday sun. Ribbons of cloud stretch across the horizon, dancing shades of deep blue and creamy grey supporting the canopy of stars above. Meanwhile  the call of the Northern Saw-whet Owl echoes from the Fox Pro, mingling with the baying of a lone dog in the distance. A perfect night for owls.

boreal owl  we are not the droids you are looking for 

Even though it’s only 10 pm I’m heading to bed. I’ll miss most of the owls, in fact I’ve missed over 80% of them already. I’ve had a chance to band Boreal Owls and Long eared due to them hitting the nets early, but the bulk of them pass me by. I occasionally see them fly above us while we set up the nets. Beautiful Long- eared dancing in the pale pastel twilight as the stars wink into existence above them. I am enthralled by them and wish I could stay a little longer. But a history of insomnia calls me to sleep and I can’t function without a sleep schedule anymore.

white crowned sparrows  adult left immature right

It’s a trade off. I can’t do both owls and songbirds, so I’ve chosen songbirds and sleep. The drive home from the marsh is lonely, my headlights illuminating a pale and empty stretch of road. I wonder what birds we will get in the morning, hoping for a busy day.  

But it is not as busy as we hoped. Dawn cuts through the fog laden sky, melting the frost from the nets with the chirps of sparrows bursting from the understory. It’s been a slower day that usual, the great wave of sparrows has never materialized it seems with the amount of juveniles surprisingly low.  Chris explains that the White-Crowned Sparrows may have had a hard breeding season. Near the end of May there was still snow on their breeding grounds. Too cold and too wet.  

So they chose not to breed, or not to try again. They had to make a choice, to risk breeding and lower their survival chances as they poured energy into their brood, or sacrifice a chance at offspring to survive another day. It seems like many abandoned parenthood altogether, or were unable to raise their chicks at all.

The ducks seem to have suffered a similar fate, I think it was the rain which washed their nests away like so many other birds. As the airboat crew searched in vain for ducks in the vast emptiness of the marsh I was reminded of the fragility of everything. How a simple wet and cold spring determined the outcome for the remainder of the year, maybe even the next.

And yet despite these falling numbers of some species due to the cold and wet other species have thrived. Red-eyed vireos surged this year with the caterpillar moth infestation. We’ve set many new records for the marsh, Robins, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, White-throated Sparrows, Blue-headed Vireos, Swainson’s Thrushes, and many more. Over 11,000 birds caught so far. I wonder what allowed these birds to flourish while others struggled. What trade-offs did they have to make, or avoid altogether?

first american tree sparrow of the year

As I walk along the berm watching the empty nets waver in the breeze I think of all the trade-offs I’ve made. I wonder which ones were worth it.

 

joanne with a rusty blackbird definitely worth it !!!