Colour banding chickadees at the Hilliardton marsh

 

Blue banded black capped chickadee what does blue mean? Read on !

Years ago we were doing a special project for Kevin Hannah of the Canadian Wildlife Service. We had been asked to collect feathers from Common redpolls and pine and evening grosbeaks . Collecting feathers was to help with an isotope study they were doing  which allowed  from the particular isotope signature where the birds had been hatched. In addition to collecting the feather we placed a colour band on each birds leg as well as the numeric Canadian wildlife service band When we had visitors to the marsh they became very excited when they spied a colour band on a bird which lead us to start the colour banding project for chickadees at the marsh. 
     Chickadees for the most part are not migratory and besides dispersing for the breeding season they are very dedicated to feeders in the winter returning year after year. Every year for the past 6 years we have been putting a colour band on chickadees in addition to the metal Canadian wildlife Service band. The colour of the band signifies the year it was banded . 2021 is yellow, 2020 is green 2019 is white  going back to 2014 which is dark blue . When we started the project in 2017 we put colour bands on birds of known ages prior to 2017 allowing us to have coloured bands for birds  back to 2009 although the chance of seeing one of those birds is very remote. The age record for a banded black capped chickadee is  11 years 6 months and was originally banded in Minnesota May 5th 2002. You never know what the future may hold for one of these banded birds at the marsh.

Red is 2017

    The main advantage of having a colour banded bird is that it does not have to be recaptured to know the age o f the bird and visitors at the marsh take great delight in seeing flocks of  birds with different colour bands showing that the birds  are in social groups of different age classes. Colour banding birds gives us another layer of detail in encouraging the study of birds. Many researchers use a combination of  several different colour bands to allow them to identify individual birds  by sight. Our purpose was  to identify the ages of birds by sight and to get our visitors excited about continued chickadee research at the marsh.  

Recently we recaptured a bird with a blue band  another with a brown band and another with a red band 

Blue           Originally banded  October 28th 2014, interesting this bird was not recaptured at all in 2016 or 2019 but all of the other years. It is currently our oldest chickadee to date and   was  aged  as a hatching year bird when it was banded making it over 6 years in age 

Brown           Originally banded  Aug 14th 2015  banded as a hatching year bird and a little over 5 years  now.

Red   Originally banded August 17th 2017 as a hatching year bird  It has been recaptured 9 times since it was originally banded.

I mentioned in my last blog that we are also banding chickadees at the north end of the marsh and will continue doing that moving into the future as these birds were all unbanded revealing that it is a different flock then the birds using the south end of the marsh. it would be very interesting if one of these birds or any of the "marsh" birds might show up at someone's feeder in the area. If that is the case I certainly would like to hear about it. The colour band might draw more attention so hopefully i will be reporting some sightings in the future.

In 2018 one of our orange banded birds showed up in Allison Ontario unfortunately hitting a window. Every now and then chickadees seem to migrate. Technically these are called irruptions  and do not seem to happen in  regular cycle . We have noticed that we do not have many chickadees lingering with orange bands and feel it is perhaps because they wandered  far away from the marsh.

yellow means 2021

There is lots to learn about chickadees at the marsh and we are excited to have the opportunity to colour band them and share the information with our visitors.  Naturally I am urging that blue  banded chickadee to keep enjoying the sunflower seeds at the marsh feeders for another 5 years so we can perhaps set a new longevity record for chickadees .

2021 time for a Hilliardton Marsh update

 

Well it has been a very long time . The blog kind of disappeared  when i started doing a podcast which you can find if you look for boreal bruce's bird banding blog  but I thought rather than updating on facebook or instagram that a moment back to the blog would be fitting. I really do not know what is the best way to communicate what is happening at the marsh but I kind of know that instagram is limited to a certain number of letters and folks on facebook do not like lengthy posts so here I am poised to get back to the blog for at least a moment. 

We had an interesting 2020 and managed to band spring and fall which also included owl banding. We were in lock step with the health unit and our team with all of the covid restrictions still managed to band  almost 10,000 birds representing 97 species. It would be impossible to update the entire banding season  and i feel guilty as i was somehow hoping to get the podcast going again to update everyone  but perhaps moving forward it will be back to the blog if anyone has an interest in plowing through grammar  and dithering. The plus is for those who have listened to the podcast you do not have to hear me say um.

So lets get to it.  We are lucky to have winter finches  after last winter a complete absence due to so much food in the north but we are enjoying a fresh start to the new year and after  only 4 days of banding  have managed the following totals

5 black capped chickadees

20 common redpolls 

12 evening grosbeaks 

1 hairy woodpecker

5 hoary redpolls 

9 pine grosbeaks 

Not a bad start to the new year especially while we are in lock down and cannot have volunteers out to help us  which leads me to a new development .

Our marsh intern Doug Manner  aka "Dog with a  u" aka Jethro

I would like to introduce any marsh followers to Doug Manners who is our intern. We are very fortunate to have Doug helping us. DOug was hired back in October and will be with us to the end of the banding season in the spring . Doug was our crew leader the summer of 2019 and we are very happy to have him. SO it is basically Doug and I for the winter finch banding season and we shall see how we can do. We are hoping for a good grosbeak season and so far we have not been disappointed  .

In the fall we were very excited to hire Joanne hamilton and chris Sukha to help with the deign of our trail system and on Chris's part to design some art work  that people will enjoy with their kids on the trails. Joanne did an amazing job and once we have the french translation all done we will be looking to  get our trail signage up in the spring . We are very appreciative of funding from RBC to make all of this possible  and I have to say people will be very impressed with the expertise that Joanne Hamilton  brought to the project. if the name Joanne Hamilton sounds familiar she volunteered at the marsh back in 2017 and had some time to volunteers this fall and I was so excited that she could take on the job of coordinating out trail design and signage project. 

Joanne Hamilton facilitating  decisions  by youth about the trail 

Ebird winners

It is always an exciting time of th year to announce last years MurphEbird  winners  the pun makes sense when you realize my last name is Murphy. Moving on, this year the prize goes to Mike Werner  a multi year winner  and the junior award goes for the 3rd year in a row to Kristen Morrow who continues to impress with the number of checklists and her continued passion for birding despite moving on from her formative days bat the 'School of flock" at kerns public school. Honourable mention must go to her siblings  Rebecca and  8 year old Nelson  who are also ebirding and very much want to get ahead of her . Congratulations to Mike and Kristen very happy to see your enjoyment of ebird and your passion for birding 

The morrow Clan  Nelson (left) Rebecca (middle) and Kristen the ebird champ with blue school of flock hat

 

Covid 19

Recently with increased cases our area is now in lock down and the marsh is once again closed to visitors which means volunteers as well. We are hoping to carry on banding as we can and will keep feeders filled. Doug is going to be working on a lot of data and will also be working on our snow shoe trails just in case we have the opportunity to welcome limited numbers of people back to the marsh.

North end shed

Doug has also initiated a banding project we have not tried since 2007. The north end of the marsh is a very unique and I feel very special place. It is so remote that in 2004 we decided to build a cabin to allow us to  access banding possibilities and potentially programming down the road. From his time as crew leader and from taking on the north end for owl banding Doug has been intrigued by the possibility of banding boreal chickadees and Canada jays. The north end is intact boreal forest and has the potential for both of these species. Getting to the north end requires a great deal of effort as it is 3 km from our banding shed and requires access this time of year by snow machine or an hour snowshoe. So far Doug has banded 8 black capped chickadees and 2 red breasted nuthatches. Of great interest to me is that all of the chickadees captured were unbanded  suggesting that the flock at the north end of the marsh is separate from the south which in itself is really exciting. Always something to learn. So far despite setting out lots of feeders there have been no redpolls or grosbeaks attracted to the seed which is also very interesting. We will keep you updated. The last time we had a concentrated banding effort in the winter in the north end was in 2007 so Doug's initiative is valued and will be of great interest moving forward. I think banding 3 kilometers apart will keep the health unit happy. I should not make a glib remark like that I am very thankful for all the health unit is doing and I certainly appreciate all their efforts to keep us all safe . 

Doug and Marie Eve  couples do not have to be a condor wing span apart 

Here the update ends  more information to come  Covid is allowing me some time to get blogging again and I already have something planned a few days from now . All the best stay safe  thanks for indulging me and let me know if you are following the blog and whether it is worthwhile to continue after such a long absence. Bird is the word!!