Well, we arrived today to an immense amount of water seeping from the river into the pond into our net lanes and beyond. The drive to the farm along the Grand River revealed playgrounds, fences and even stadium seating that had been overwhelmed with water from the river. In all of my time visiting this area, and Rick’s time too, we had never seen the water that high at the Farm.

It is very fortunate that at our set-up day we decided to raise the new building higher, adding more cement blocks to raise it off the ground even further than it already was. Believe it or not, even with this extra effort it was close to being compromised today. As the morning wore on, we noticed with shock and displeasure that the water was *continuing* to rise, right in front of our eyes. The entrance to the old lab was accessible by a small strip of land right at dawn, buy by 11am it was under half a foot of water.

Out of the 7 nets we have up, we were only able to open 3 today, due to the sheer amount of flooding making the majority of the nets inaccessible even with tall rubber boots. Even so, we managed to catch a few birds.

Banded 4:

• 2 Song Sparrows
• 1 American Tree Sparrow
• 1 Field Sparrow

Recaptured: 1 Song Sparrow

The first Field Sparrow observed and banded of the year! – ADP

Despite the slow banding, we were able to complete a census (thanks to Ishira and Jeremy!), and we spent a lot of the day birding. We admired some small flocks of Blue-winged Teal that had alighted on the pond, listened to a Bald Eagle’s serenade of chirpy calls as it perched in the trees, watched Tree Swallows battle for territory, and looked on in awe as a beautiful adult male Northern Harrier glided effortlessly over the prairie. It was a glorious morning reaching 10ºC and sunny with no wind, which felt tropical compared to earlier this week. We ended up with an ET of 43 species – much higher than any of us predicted!

Due to the slow banding and the many hands, we had the opportunity to cut a new net lane, at Rick’s direction. Although somehow, he wanted us to cut the lane and also not remove the dogwoods… we decided a “light trimming” should be fine! This lane looks promising as it cuts between some patches of grey dogwood and smaller saplings, bordering some brush piles – time will tell!

Jeremy, Luca, Jason, Ishira and myself after clearing and putting up the new net 2! – ADP

Chris using her power tools to remove some tripping-hazard stumps – DOL

Feather Friendly, a company who creates products to help reduce window collisions, was kind enough to donate an entire educational package to HBO. This is to retrofit our buildings to make them safe for birds, and also to provide education to visitors about window collisions and ways to prevent them. Luca and I began putting these up today in the time between net checks.

Putting up markers that prevent birds from hitting our banding lab windows! – ADP

The finished product of the front door of the lab – ADP

Overall, it was a very fun and rewarding morning! Even though we didn’t catch a lot of birds, we shared a lot of knowledge, fun stories, introduced some new folks to banding and had some great birding moments. Thanks everyone for your help and joining in on the watery adventures!

Jeremy and Ishira out in the canoe! – ADP

First of all, a big and sincere thank you to all the hard-working and dedicated volunteers who came out to help setup the station today, despite the damp weather! Luckily enough, the rain was nice enough to hold back as we worked, despite questionable forecasts. With many hands we were able to very quickly and efficiently get the farm ready for spring banding! Signs of spring were already evident at the site – skunk cabbage emerging from the deep muck, Red-winged Blackbirds and Meadowlarks singing, Golden-crowned Kinglets flitting through the trees and Great Blue Herons flying north.

Some of today’s volunteers posing in front of the new building! – ADP

We all spent some time marvelling at the new banding building. It is really quite impressive and luxurious compared to the old “hut” that we are all used to!

The biggest task today was setting up 7 of our nets, which involved trimming existing lanes and also adding a new one into the prairie swath. Luckily, some tools provided by volunteers and energetic “young folk” made this process quick and painless.

Other tasks for the morning included moving items into the new building, gathering fallen sticks into brush piles (which are very popular for sparrows and important habitat for other critters) and re-painting numbers onto nest boxes. Feeders were filled for the first time in a while, in anticipation of banding in the coming days!

Amy painting a nest box at the edge of the tallgrass prairie – ADP

Ben learning how to put up nets – an essential skill for bird monitoring! – ADP

Once again, a big thank you to everyone who helped out. We are looking forward to the start of migration! PS thank you to Alex for being our professional photographer!