October 10, 2021 – Thanksgiving banding

We had a somewhat slower day today compared to some of the busy days we’ve been having recently, likely due to south winds the last couple nights. However, the weather was beautiful and we still caught some interesting birds. A fair amount of the birds we caught today were recaptures, suggesting that a lot of birds are hanging around the site to forage, instead of attempting to migrate in the unfavorable winds. We also got some very interesting news today: a Northern Saw-whet Owl banded at our site in Lowville in fall of 2020 was recaptured just a few days ago at Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory!

An Eastern Wood-Pewee we caught in the first net round

Nashville Warbler

Sam extracting a Field Sparrow from the net; this is a sparrow we don’t catch too many of.

Rob brought his drone and got this awesome photo of the banding site from above!

Banded at Lowville:
1 Eastern Wood-Pewee
5 Golden-crowned Kinglet
3 Ruby-crowned Kinglet
3 Nashville Warbler
1 Magnolia Warbler
1 Field Sparrow
1 Song Sparrow
3 White-throated Sparrow

Recaps:
6 Black-capped Chickadee
1 White-breasted Nuthatch
1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet
1 Gray Catbird
1 Song Sparrow
3 White-throated Sparrow

Total 31 (of 11 species)

October 12, 2021
We had a rather slow day at Lowville on the 12th, likely due to South winds the night before. However, we still had a nice diversity of species. Almost half of the birds we caught were recaptures, which makes sense with the unfavorable winds.

Banded:
2 Golden-crowned Kinglet
2 Ruby-crowned Kinglet
1 Nashville Warbler
1 Common Yellowthroat
2 Song Sparrow
2 White-throated Sparrow
1 American Goldfinch
Recaps:
2 Black-capped Chickadee
6 White-throated Sparrow
1 Northern Cardinal
1 American Goldfinch

October 13 & 14, 2021
We did our first night of owl banding on the evening of the 13th. We target Northern Saw-whet Owls; a small forest owl species that migrates through our area (and sometimes winters). We did indeed catch owls! 5 Northern Saw-whet Owls for our first night, and we hope to catch more.

Northern Saw-whet Owl

The morning of the 14th was unseasonably warm, and ended up being one of our biggest days of the season so far with 86 birds caught! A nice variety of species for this time of year, but the large numbers were due to lots of kinglets and sparrows.

First Junco of the year!

Brown Creeper

Banded in Lowville:
2 Downy Woodpecker
3 Black-capped Chickadee
1 Brown Creeper
1 Winter Wren
21 Ruby-crowned Kinglet
8 Golden-crowned Kinglet
1 Gray-cheeked Thrush
1 Swainson’s Thrush
3 Tennessee Warbler
1 Blackpoll Warbler
3 Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)
3 Swamp Sparrow
10 Song Sparrow
12 White-throated Sparrow
1 Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored)
5 American Goldfinch

Recaps:
1 Blue Jay
2 Black-capped Chickadee
1 American Goldfinch
1 Gray Catbird
1 Tennessee Warbler
1 Nashville Warbler
1 White-throated Sparrow
1 Northern Cardinal
1 American Goldfinch

Total: 86

~Written by Ashley Jensen

October 8, 2021
written by Ben Oldfield
Today was another busy day at the Lowville banding site. 85 birds were banded and 10 were retrapped making for a fast pace morning. Ruby Crowned Kinglets were around in high numbers with 29 being banded and an estimated 125 around the site. Below are the totals for the day and some pictures. Liam, Eila and Nola were all a big help with extracting and banding today!

White Breasted Nuthatch – 2
Ruby Crowned Kinglet – 29
Golden Crowned Kinglet – 9
Swainsons thrush – 1
Hermit Thrush – 1
House Wren – 1
Winter Wren – 1
Nashville Warbler – 6
Orange Crowned Warbler – 1
Tennessee Warbler – 1
Myrtle Warbler – 3
Western Palm Warbler – 1
Common Yellowthroat – 1
Swamp Sparrow – 2
Lincoln’s Sparrow – 1
White Throated Sparrow – 11
Song Sparrow – 3
Eastern White Crowned Sparrow – 2
American Goldfinch – 8

Total – 85

October 6, 2021
written by Ben Oldfield

Light North winds paired with overcast skies made for a good day of banding in Lowville. In the 5 hours we were open we captured 85 birds with 74 of those being new. I fully expect these high totals to continue over the next few days. Ruby Crowned Kinglets made there presence known with 22 banded, followed by 11 Nashville warbler’s. FOS birds include a banded Fox Sparrow, Lincoln’s Sparrow and a White Crowned Sparrow observed throughout the day. See list below for final banding total.

Blue Jay-2
Ruby Crowned Kinglet-22
Golden Crowned Kinglet-7
House Wren-2
Swainson’s Thrush-2
Downy Woodpecker-1
Black-capped Chickadee-1
Nashville Warbler-11
Magnolia Warbler-1
Yellow Rumped Warbler-7
Black Throated Blue Warbler-1
Black Throated Green Warbler -1
Lincoln’s Sparrow-1
White Throated Sparrow-9
Fox Sparrow-1
Song Sparrow-4
American Goldfinch-1

Total-74

Oct 5, 2021 – Fall is truly here!
written by Ashley Jensen

It’s that time of year.. when you can feel things starting to change. The leaves are starting to pull their nutrients back from their leaves revealing beautiful warm colors, cool rainy weather is moving in, and the days are getting shorter. One of the other things that signifies fall is here is a switch in the bird species we are seeing (and catching). We are catching fewer of some of the warbler species, and lots more sparrows and kinglets, which is always a sign to me that fall is truly here. Our day in Lowville started with a thick humid mist, and fairly low visibility. It seems the dense fog kept the birds foraging low, and probably helped us catch more birds later in the day. While the first net run was the busiest (which is pretty typical), it did not really slow down all day! If we had the time and energy, we probably could’ve kept the nets open all day and continued to catch birds until sunset.

Unusually bright crown on this Golden-crowned Kinglet -AMJ

Golden-crowned Kinglets are a regular visitor here, but this male has an unusual amount of orange in his crown! Usually the males have a yellow crown with orange that peeks through at the center and is barely visible unless the bird decides to erect their crown feathers. What a stunner this little bird is!

Banding setup in Lowville

Icebergs are beautiful to observe. But they’re also a great place to look for seabirds. The ice carries land-based nutrients and trace elements (e.g., iron) and as it melts these nutrients are released into the surrounding water fueling the growth of phytoplankton, the primary producer of the ocean’s food chain. Phytoplankton attracts zooplankton (e.g., krill) and fish (like polar cod) which in turn feed a wide array of birds and marine mammals. [And if you want to talk about the top of the food chain…Icebergs provide the basis for Qidi Vidi Iceberg Beer, an excellent brew made by a small brewery just outside St. John’s.]
Sometimes we were close enough to see seabirds feasting in the waters around a berg – around one I saw had a group of >50 Northern Fulmars in the water just downwind from the ice feasting on the organisms the ice cold, nutrient-rich waters were fostering and another 40 sitting on it. I used to think that birds sitting on a berg were just catching a lift but all too often the big ones are grounded and the birds are going nowhere, just getting a rest

With time and warmer air and water temperatures and wave action, icebergs begin to melt and break down. Often you can see a long trail of smaller pieces of ice trailing away from a large berg, moving downwind or with the current. There are two classifications of smaller icebergs, which are usually spawned from larger bergs: “bergy bits” and “growlers”. The former are less than 5 meters in size while the latter are less than 2 meters and extend less than 1 meter above the surface – they can be very hard to see, especially if there is any wave action. I’m sure they got their name from the sound made as they slid along the side of a wooden ship.

Note the band of ice pieces streaming between the 2 bergs in the foreground – one of them is breaking up.

So as I was watching these giant ice blocks, I began to wonder if they were becoming a thing of the past. Was I seeing the last of their kind? Would there be any left for future generations to see? Warming in the Arctic is going on at twice the rate as in the rest of the world. On many Arctic islands you can see where glaciers have retreated up slopes, sometimes hundreds of meters from the sea. Ice would not be breaking off these glaciers and tumbling into the ocean; they would simply fall onto land and melt there. And Arctic glaciers are melting at a prodigious rate, so not only are they receding, they’re also getting thinner.

One of the wonderful things about being on a vessel dedicated to research is that you get to meet and discuss issues with a wide array of experts: geologists, oceanographers, biologists studying everything from the bottom sediment interface to plankton and fish. Last Fall I had the good fortune of meeting Cameron Roy who works for the Canadian Ice Service. I learned a lot about how oceans freeze over (and got to see it happening around the Boothia Peninusala), the extent (and recession) of the Arctic ice field, how to read the ice maps generated by the Canadian Ice Service (on this trip we used one to avoid a large icefield that was blocking our transit to Scott Inlet).

Anchored in an icefield

Cameron is on the current “leg” of the Amundsen’s cruise, so, via the magic of internet I asked him the question: are we seeing the end of icebergs in the north Atlantic? To start he noted that around 90% come from the West Greenland Ice Sheet (Disko Bay, Melville Bay, and the Humboldt Glacier in Kane Basin) and about 10% come from Canada (Devon Island and Ellesmere Island – a couple of years ago a huge piece, ~40%, of the Milne Ice Sheet on Ellesmere Island made the news when it collapsed into the ocean). And then he passed the question over to his cabin mate, Dr. Luke Copland from the University of Ottawa, who, as luck would have it, just happens to be a leading world expert on icebergs.

Note the tunnel–it will soon break in two.

Dr. Copland does not foresee a diminution this century, going into the next one. He notes that the recession of glaciers often reported in the news refers to mountain glaciers, which are most responsive to climate warming, but that these are not significant sources of icebergs (although their melting contributes to sea level rise). The major source of bergs is the massive Greenland Ice Sheet and there is still an awful lot of it. Still, it is melting and this has resulted in an increase in the velocity of the iceflow transporting more ice to the terminal where it subsequently “calves” into the sea. He notes that, if there were to be a massive collapse of the Greenland Ice Sheet, it would result in a significant sea level rise – so the glaciers would continue to touch the ocean.

His conclusion: icebergs (and thus Quidi Vidi Iceberg Beer) will continue undiminished into the next century.

Early July, around the time of my birthday, I celebrated one full year at sea: since 2012 I have been a seabird observer on research vessels plying the northwest Atlantic from the Scotian Shelf to Lancaster Sound. During some of this time the vessels have worked up the coast of Labrador and, through Davis Strait, into the Baffin Sea and Arctic Ocean. So I’ve been through “iceberg alley” and beyond. And, although I’ve seen hundreds of them, VIEWING ICEBERGS NEVER GETS OLD.

But this one was special. First, because of its sheer size. It loomed large even at a distance of 15 NM (nautical miles) to the point that it even seemed to be making its own weather: the berg was chilling the water immediately surrounding it and this was initiating a dense fog which the winds were blowing over it and several miles downwind – looking like the snow plumes you see in pictures blowing over the top of Mt. Everest.

The other thing that made this one special was that the captain, Alain Galiepy, in response to my somewhat flippant request (“Let’s steam over and get a good look at it”) said, “sure”. Now this in itself was significant. Many times during my accumulated year at sea I’ve pointed out interesting things: whales, concentrations of seabirds, icebergs, the Queen Elizabeth II, and have suggested going over to get a “closer look”. And EVERY time, the response has been the same: a chuckle and a course maintained. [Ok….being turned down for some things I can sort of understand….like the time I found a “ports book” for Northwest Africa on the bridge of the Hudson and suggested that we go take a look at the port of Dakar, capital city of Senegal….maybe a bit out of the way. But these other phenomena!?)

The iceberg viewed from approximately 8 nautical miles

I couldn’t believe it when the captain had the helmsman change course toward this monster. As we got closer, the fog that it was generating became thicker to the point that you couldn’t see it any longer. Thank goodness for radar! (I just can’t imagine the terror that the combination of fog and icebergs must have engendered in pre-radar mariners. One time, along Iceberg Alley, we were enshrouded by a thick fog that reduced visibility to <50 m. and stayed with us for hours – didn’t see many seabirds I must say. The radar screen showed a total of 62 icebergs within a 10 NM radius! And this didn’t count the numerous smaller “growlers” and “bergy bits”. Nonplussed, we were able to steam right along.)

For awhile I thought that, ironically, this berg, unique because it was the response to a request that had never resulted in any action before, would be unviewable. But then, as we were beside it, the top became visible and I grabbed my camera. And at this point there was another irony: my memory card was full and I couldn’t get more than one shot!

The captain had retrieved his sextant from his cabin and “shot” the berg finding that its elevation was 88 meters – almost the height of a football field’s length! He went on to say that the depth of the berg under the water (the “keel”) would vary between 4-6 times the height of the part above (the “sail”) and that this would depend on the volume of the sail – pushing the keel down. In this case, the sail was massive, not narrow and/or conical, a solid block. So a conservative estimate of 5 times the height would suggest that this berg extended at least 440 meters below the surface. The berg was perched on a slope. It had drifted across an ocean floor that was over 700 m. deep but was shelving up to 200 m. Somewhere along this slope the berg had hit the bottom and grounded itself. It was stuck fast and the current and/or wind wouldn’t move it until it had melted considerably – several years from now.

The top of the berg emerging from the fog it created