The new year has just begun and my fingers hurt!!!

Well another year is upon us and I thought I would start out with  blog and the hope that I will take the opportunity to blog more often to try and keep people apprised of the movement of bird in our part of the boreal forest.  Now that I am also doing a podcast which is called "bird banter with boreal Bruce my time has been split up a bit but we continue to band at the marsh and the riverhouse site and kerns public so I want to try and keep the flow of information about our banding. You can also find updates on instagram  borealbruce_hilliardtonmarsh as well as the marsh facebook page which joanne faithfully updates often.

Northern Shrike the hook on the top bill warrants careful attention 

So to the birds  this morning I was able to capture a northern shrike that has recently been going after redpolls. It was the first bird banded in 2019 and as they are apt to do, drew a fair bit of blood while I was trying to band it. I recently discovered something that should have been obvious to me but the shrike is the only songbird that is a carnivore. They kill their prey by seizing them with the hook of their top bill and their straight bottom bill and plucking the throat of the unfortunate bird usually ripping their throats open. This move happens quickly and I witnessed this action 4 or 5 times on my exposed fingers this morning.

Erin Oreilly Shelby Hearn and Alex Barkhouse were out for some grosbeak banding  happy day for me. Evening and twp pine grosbeaks pictured here 

    The other bird I am excited about right now is the arrival of snow buntings both at kerns public at in the field right by our river house. We are giving the small flocks some time to dedicate themselves to the feed piles and hopefully we will start banding them when the kids return to school January 7th.
     At the marsh we are catching lots of birds  in the j trap and the other day we were able to band  16 evening grosbeaks 5 pine grosbeaks  and captured over 30 common redpolls. Pine and evening grosbeak numbers are rising  and I am looking forward to a good 2019 with these species this winter
       In closing out this update  we are also looking forward to the Christmas bird count 4 kids happening at the marsh Saturday Jan 5th. the temperature is going to be a dandy -3 so we are looking forward to a great day with the kids and their families

Alex and one of the 16 evening grosbeaks banded today

Until then a very happy new year from me and a big thank you to all of the volunteers and visitors
and supporters that helped make 2018 such a successful year. We accomplished a lot  thanks to the generosity of a lot of people  and  we have even bigger plans  for the coming year. Hope to see you in 2019!!!