Saying goodbye to Sarah Bonnett "sarah dipity"

Sarah with our first ever indigo bunting banded at the marsh

Well anyone reading the blog will know how appreciative I am  of volunteers.  Well Sarah was not a volunteer, the marsh was able to pay her with the help of Colleges and Institute Canada  and a program they run called the clean tech internship program. We qualified to have a 6 month internship with the federal government and the marsh had to pay a big chunk and the feds paid the rest for a 6 month internship. The result was Sarah Bonnet.

     Sarah came to us from Trent University where she had volunteered banding sawwhet owls,she  also had banding experience at long point bird observatory. She was super keen and great with people which are clearly two wonderful skills to possess for working at the marsh. What I was not  quite prepared for was how amazing she was with data and how much she enjoyed checking to make sure our data was completely accurate. I was also not prepared for how much work beyond a normal working day she was  prepared to give which basically meant that when she was not banding she was doing data of some kind . Whether it was integrity checks or looking up something for the banding office, the result is that all of our data since 1996 has now been double checked  all of our data  is in a format where we can access it for ourselves and researchers . The best part of all this work is that she enjoyed doing it and I never really asked her it was an initiative she took on and wanted to be sure we were set.
     People may who know me know that one of my favourite words when it comes to banding is serendipity.  Well Sarah was the perfect case of that has we were so lucky to have someone with her strength to make sure our data has integrity moving forward. Her skill sets were such a mesh for the needs of our research.  You might call it "Sarah dipity"

only our 3rd ever belted king fisher 

    In addition to that  Sarah was excellent  teaching kids and adults alike and absolutely  thrived at the marsh.  Her knowledge of birds and banding have her on the cusp of getting her banding license  and I know she will move on to do great things.  If we had the chance to offer her a full time job we would without hesitation but alas the internship was for 6 months so we had to say goodbye.  We will have the chance to see her at the  Ontario bird banding meeting  at bird studies Canada  and I have a feeling we will be seeing her back at the marsh someday. After all where else in Ontario can you band 50 boreal in one season.  Hopefully one day someone will talk her into doing her masters and she will come back to the marsh to put motus transmitters on some owls for us one day. The future is very bright for Sarah, its definitely not a matter of chance!!! Good luck Sarah we already miss you

one of the many boreal Sarah banded 

Sarah with a Piliated