banding our first spring arrivals or saying goodbye to redpolls!!

I had a wonderful morning banding with Delphine and Louis Churman. Delphine is  one of  the Hilliardton  Marsh directors and Louis is a marsh bandit  . What is a bandit you might ask? Marsh bandits will be the topic of another blog. Louis and Delphine are both learning how to take birds out of the nets and are getting really good at it.  As is their bird identification.  I heard a purple  finch calling earlier in the day near the nets and when Delphine told me she had a sparrow in the net I kind of chuckled to myself and sauntered over expecting to tell her that a female purple finch looks a lot like a sparrow but indeed she was taking a song sparrow out of the net.. Delphine had our first migrant that we have caught since catching an earlier returning red winged blackbird March 30th.

Beyond the birds the other great part of the morning was hearing the sound of melting  water and having to take layers off and enjoying  the April sun.

Another perk for the day was seeing the first sandhill cranes and turkey vulture of the season. Delphine  and Louis left just before we managed to catch 2 male purple finch and another 4 red-winged blackbirds. I also managed to recapture our second banded red winged blackbird of the season I was super interested to discover that both of the red winged blackbirds we have managed to recapture  were both originally banded in 2011.  The first we recaptured  march 30th and it was banded  may 25th 2011, and today's was banded  may 4th 2011. The other neat bird to show up was our first pine siskins  at the marsh which may indicate that the birds being reported in the Algonquin park are showing up.

We have had pockets of siskins that have found area feeders  throughout the winter  but these are the first to have discovered the marsh. On a personal note  despite having enjoyed my years of teaching  banding  at the marsh in April is a pretty sweet gig perhaps this will all become standard banding  in a few years but for now out standard banding begins May 2nd which we are all looking forward to.

Hope to have more to write about soon....bird is the word!





Today's banding totals

11 common redpoll
1 hoary redpoll
4 pine siskins
4 red winged blackbirds
2 purple finch
1 song sparrow


retraps

6    black capped chickadee
1    red winged blackbird
25  common redpoll including 4 colour banded birds
2    hairy woodpeckers

noteworthy species not banded  no  census taken due to snow depth

20 Canada geese
5 sandhill cranes   first of year
1 turkey vulture     first of year