Nick with a broad-winged hawk 

Hello Marsh enthusiasts, lovers, and followers! My name is Nick Alioto and I am the Marsh’s 2018 banding intern and I can’t begin to explain how happy I am to be back at the marsh for the fall 2018 banding season! After working odd jobs throughout the summer which included modeling and landscaping it feels good to back doing what I love!

This fall we have assembled an “A-Team” to help run the station, led by local legend Bruce Murphy. Some come from far and some from within Ontario (myself included). Needless to say, we have great comradery and it is shaping up to be an amazing fall. Our fall protocol commenced on August 1^st and since then we have been getting up before the crack of dawn to see what feathered friends have stopped over at the Marsh before continuing their journey further south to their respective wintering grounds.

leucistic alder on the right an incredible rarity 

The month of August was very successful for the marsh in terms of both species diversity and total captures. This month we banded 2,759 new birds of 64 species! The most abundant banded bird of August was the Alder Flycatcher (Empidonax alnorun) with 320 being banned which is truly incredible. The reason being is that as you go further south the Alder flycatchers range starts to overlap with the Willow flycatcher and these two species are so similar that banding stations in the south often have to call these flycatchers a “Traill’s” when captured. This a term used by banders which means we are not sure what species we have but we know it is one of the two. However, at the Marsh since we are so far north we are within only the Alders breeding range and therefore we know we are catching them and not Willow. This is unique to only a few banding stations in Ontario. They are also distinguished by their call which has an associated pneumonic which sounds like it is saying “Free Beer”…. now that’s my kind of bird! The highlight among all these Alders was catching a leucistic Alder Flycatcher (See picture below compared to normal Alder). Leucism is defined as the loss of pigment in an animal resulting in pale, white or patchy coloration. In this case, the feathers appear more pale and brown. This is very uncommon among animals and it super interesting to see a bird in hand resulting from this condition. The flycatcher below appears brown in coloration as opposed to being the olive color which is normal for this species. Apart from the Alders this month saw high capture rates of Purple finch, Red-eyed vireo, and many warbler species. I have included a top 10 species banded chart at the bottom of this blog so you can see what birds were most frequently during August.

sarah flushed this beauty into the QEW net  what a find 

Other highlights include catching a Hatching year Virginia Rail on the 31^st (Pictured above) along with being able to band two Broad-winged hawks which were both rehabbed in Sudbury and were then successfully released (Pictures below).

Nick banding a rehab broad-winged a successful release well-done nick! and what a great job by the rehab team at wild at heart in Sudbury

As we enter into September we expect to see another push of migrants as the temperatures continue to drop and we slowly transition into the beauty that fall has to offer. This also means that owl migration will begin shortly and for those of you that don’t know I spent the last year in Northern Michigan as an owl bander and cannot wait to help run the owl protocol here at the marsh and share my knowledge with all of the new crew… Especially Mohammad who knows of my love for the strigids! Until next time stay classy Hilliardton!

Top Ten Species Banded August 2018:

Species	Total Banded
Alder Flycatcher	320
Purple Finch	253
Red-eyed Vireo	233
American Redstart	186
Least Flycatcher	143
White-throated sparrow	139
Common Yellowthroat	130
Swamp Sparrow	97
Veery	85
Nashville Warbler	81

A female belted kingfisher showing her prominent colours on the left we have never caught two kingfishers at once and these two represent the 4th and 5th ever banded at the marsh a very special day indeed!