Hey folks, here are a few updates I received recently. I’ll start with reports that highlights unclaimed retraps (in bold, below).

From David Hussell – Southern ON:

Andrew trapped on Long Point beach again yesterday and got 3 more recaps. Two of them were banded by David and Martin. One remains unidentified: 2421-83541.

The other unidentified one, reported earlier, is: 2531-18590.

David

Theresa & Glenn – King Township, ON
Feb 9:

Hi Jeff
Theresa and I have captured a foreign recap 2531-19155 in King City On .

Regards

Feb 6:

Hi Jeff

We caught two foreign recaps today. 2571-17121, an ASY F is one of Joanne Goddards from the Kerns school site in Temiskaming, banded Jan 2013 as an SY. The other one, 2661 –34465, an ASY M is not in the banding lab dbase yet. We would love to hear who can claim it.

Cheers,

Theresa & Glenn

Feb 3:

The flock sizes of 80-150 of Dec/early Jan.shrunk to much smaller ones when the previous warm spell hit and did not climb again until today (Feb 3) when the largest flock count for the day was again 80. These birds were hungry, and Glenn banded 60.. We’ve had a heavy snow cover since late Sat.

We have a tiny flock of between 6-15 that appear to be regulars, less flighty around the traps than the larger groups but this small group have also learned that the corn will be available after the traps are removed, and not very inclined to enter. They peck around the edges, seeming to get invisible specks, when we think we have been very careful to make sure the corn is inaccessible without entering. They are waiting for Glenn to arrive with corn the morning after a snowfall. One of these though, an SY M, has become “trap happy”, with multiple recaptures. When you stick your hand in the trap and get an immediate bite, you know it’s #83370 again!

Interestingly, when a slightly larger flock of 50 came in Feb 2, this same bird was with them, and caught twice that day. We think we have him to thank for leading 20 other birds into the traps. This flock was very skittish. Similar to earlier experiences this year, they will come down, then very quickly up, circle the field, return to the baited area, and repeat several times before settling for a while. Once they do settle, several will enter the traps, but as soon as those individuals realize they are trapped, the rest of the flock leaves and often does not return that day. .

On many days we have banded more birds than we counted at any point in time. The overall impression is of a much larger flock that ranges over some larger area, splitting into groups to search for food, (and presumably investigate the status of previously visited food sources), assembling with other subgroups at points with some leading others to what they have found.

Presumably the experienced SNBU banders are aware of this but we have not seen it mentioned. Does everyone see a number of birds with undigested food (in our case cracked corn) stored under the skin of the hindneck? This is not fat, though we also see fat deposits in the same area, but a bulge of clearly visible corn, as in the photo. We’d love to understand more about this, i.e. how they get it in there, and later how they access it to eat/digest. It seems a great adaptation for a wide-ranging bird accessing spotty food sources in the winter to be able to take some along.
To date we have banded 407 SNBU, 78%M, 77% HY/SY, 24 RECAPS, 2 FOREIGN, and 2 LALO

I am also including a photo of the “SNBU jail” . This carrying box is a relief for cold hands when 22 birds are caught at once and the temperature is -20!

Hope everyone is enjoying these fascinating birds as much as we are!

Theresa McKenzie

Marie-Pier Laplante – Cookshire-Eaton, Eastern Townships, Qc
Feb 3:

Hi all, the first flock of the season showed up to feed in the orchard at my place in Cookshire-Eaton, Eastern Townships-Qc, on January 27th. The group, whose numbers now fluctuate between 30-50 birds, stayed for 3 days and then left with the warm weather of last week. Yet, this morning, the birds were back again and I banded the 3rd bird for this site today (Feb 3rd). I will try again tomorrow.

Marie-Pier

Feb 8:

Hello again,
The group of buntings at my place in Cookshire-Eaton is still feeding daily in the orchard. There were 42 birds today (Feb 8th), which is the most I had since the 29th of January.
I’m at 14 birds banded so far (11 males / 3 females).
With a little luck, I can manage to band the whole flock, which would be interesting!
Here is some pictures of the site.
Marie-Pier

An update from the Ruthven group:
Faye Socholotiuk – Southern ON
Feb 11

We did it! Joanne, Jack and I were able to get out this afternoon to try our hand at banding buntings at the dairy farm. We were a little uncertain as to how it would go given all the silage they had around to choose from and their propensity to shun all traps. After not much success around the silage in the driveway (aside from a very amenable horned lark that wandered in) we decided to put the trap up on the berms of food that are in storage. We had put a large pile on top of the tarps where the birds sit in large flocks on Sunday afternoon, and Jack baited it again yesterday. Within minutes we had 5 in the trap. Not long after we pulled them out (like 2 minutes!) there were another 5! Unfortunately by this time we were losing day light so had to call it quits, but we figured 10 SNBU’s and 1 HOLA was pretty good for our first try!

And! To top things off we had a recap! Not only that, but it’s one of the ones with the double bands! We decided we weren’t too sure how useful the extra band was as we had great difficulty reading it. You can see Joanne trying to use the binoculars as a magnifying glass!

Anyway, the recap number is: 266188608

Another interesting side story was that we encountered a merganser hanging out in between the berms (see the black spot in the last picture). Not sure what it was doing… but with some motivation from Jack it flew off.

We’re planning to try again tomorrow to see what we can get. I’m not sure they’ll be here long.

Faye

Finally, a few pictures shared by Holiday Beach Migration Observatory:

I’m off to Kenya this evening to pick up on the birding/banding project I started there last year. I will try to blog about my experiences while I’m there….if not, when I get back. (Please remember to send your Snow Bunting news and pictures to Jeff MacLeod so we can keep in touch across the country. Jeff’s email: jwmacleo@dal.ca

In the meantime we had some VERY interesting news: two of Bruce Murphy’s birds banded in Timiskaming in northern Ontario were retrapped by Yvan Rochepault along the north shore of the St. Lawrence. Bruce had banded them a couple of months before and then Yvan got them. It would be interesting to know what route these birds are taking! Do they do a big circle coming down from the Arctic through northern Quebec/Ontario and then returning via the St. Lawrence and Labrador coast?
Here’s the scoop from Yvan and you can see that they were quite a long way east along the river:
Hi,
These two birds were captured along the St Laurent Gulf (Québec – Minganie)
2571-18430 captured the 22 – 04 – 2013 in Rivière-au-Tonnerre
2571-18183 captured the 19 – 04 – 2013 in Magpie
Yann Rochepault

i’m waiting in some anticpation to see how Bill Maciejko is making out in Gimli Manitoba. He gets a LOT of Snow Buntings to his farm/area – probably because he feeds them so well but so far has not been able to trap them. Here’s his letter. YOu can sense his excitement:

Hi Rick,
Yes indeed, the Camp Morton flock is holding firm. The wind is up and its just beginning to snow (0930h, Jan.15) as another storm arrives. This morning`s feed saw at least 500 SNBU at a time stocking up on calories before the storm really builds up. Although, I have seen these folks flying and feeding in all but the strongest winds and fiercest of snows.
Our first banding day (Jan.11) turned out to be another dry run. BUT WE HAVE PLANS!! Today is a building day. I`m going to copy the round design used by the young folks at Kern School–theft being easier than invention. Josh is also building traps and we`ll try again this weekend.
If on Facebook, I posted a 2 minute video of the Camp Morton Snow Buntings taken January 10th on the Feederwatch Canada page. They are attracting quite a bit of attention, so I included a link to your blog. One participant uploaded pictures taken in Mirabel, some clearly showing bands.
Last week I set out a mesh tunnel, hoping to get some of the birds conditioned to entering an enclosed space to secure food.
I`m including a couple of stills, also taken on the 10th. By this morning, they were marching into the tunnel with no hesitation.
All the best,
Bill Maciejko

Hello folks, click on the link below to download an interesting article about aging, sexing, and determining subspecies of Snow Buntings. I’m looking to hear some opinions about the content of the article. You can email me your opinion, or post it in a comment.

Winters 2013 SNBU Aging-Sexing Guide

Rick