Man it was cold last night! Down to -20 C. – good old Canadian Weather, eh? No wonder there was a flock of 40 birds sitting at the bait site first thing this morning waiting for breakfast. Interestingly, almost all of them were Snow Buntings – after seeing just 5 or 6 yesterday and banding just one. I had the traps laid out by 7:50 and, literally within 2 minutes, I had 22 birds in them, the majority being Snow Buntings. These were very hungry birds! These birds have no problem with cold temperatures….as long as they can find food.

By the time I had finished banding them, the traps were full again. But this time the mix was much different: just 3 Snow Buntings and 20 Horned Larks. I’m not sure what happened to the buntings but I couldn’t see any around; they must have moved on. Time for the Horned Larks to take over. Shortly after I had cleared these out of the way, there were more birds in the traps, but the pace had slackened. No wonder: our local American Kestrel breezed in looking for his breakfast too. I used him as an excuse to pack up and go = of course it had nothing to do with the fact that it was -18 C. and I was freezing my ass off. Still, it was a very good morning: banded 30 Horned Larks and 22 Snow Buntings.
Rick

Did you feel the cosmic shudder at 4:21 AM? It was the sun getting ready to rise earlier and earlier, making the days longer and the nights shorter. The Winter Solstice…my very favourite day of the year. The marking of the sun’s return bringing light and warmth, waking a frozen earth, and inducing birds to take on their monumental migrations.

A small group of us celebrated this momentous event at the York Airport with a flighty group of Horned Larks and Snow Buntings. Forty to fifty of the former and about 10 of the latter at any one time. The lingering question: when a group flies in to the bait area, are they the same birds simply returning after a short fly-around? Or are they “new” birds coming in for their first feed of the day? The outcome? A resounding “well maybe some of them are new and some, I think, are just returnees”. An incisive answer for sure.

We could certainly use more snow – 2-3 cm won’t last long despite the -10 C. temperatures. But it was enough this morning to allow us to capture and band 25 Horned Larks and a solo Snow Bunting.

Rick

Elaine and Dave Gosnell set up a trust fund and their first project was to purchase a new home for our banding program!! What a greatly-appreciated treat! It will be delivered sometime in the new year once the ground is frozen.

There is a great deal of internal space and we’ll have to have a think tank about how best to use it. Some ideas that have already been thrown around: banding area in the front; wall off the back portion which can be used for….??…sleeping over was one suggestion (which would make it much easier for people coming from afar to participate); insulate the walls for cold weather conditions; run a narrow table outside along the front for outdoor banding….What a wonderful way to kick off more intense studies of the ecology of the site.
Rick

The Snow Bunting(/Horned Lark) banding season has gotten off to an unusually early start. Looking back over my records I note that we have caught very few buntings in December and never this early. In 2010 we caught 10 on December 21st; 2013 we had 7 caught over two days – December 26th & 27th; 2016 we had 114 starting December 14th. So getting 13 yesterday was unusual. and then I got another 33 today!

It’s not as unusual to get Horned Larks in December, but so far we’ve banded 31 – a very good start as well. And this morning I also caught one of the two Lapland Longspurs that was hanging around with a small flock of buntings.

It wasn’t a particularly cold night (went down to -3 C.) and there was no new snow to add to the 2 centimeters already on the ground. So I wasn’t expecting much this morning. But they fooled me. It was a little like Grand Central Station with small groups of Snow Buntings or Horned Larks or both dropping in, grabbing a snack and then heading off again. Only to be replaced by another flock. I wondered if these were the same flocks simply cycling through but….I don’t think so. Some groups of buntings contained all females; another had a number of young (HY) males; another brought a couple of longspurs. It’s more difficult to judge what was happening with the larks, especially as the two sexes look so much alike at a distance. But even then, I would get a small group (<8), followed by a large one (>35), and sometimes mixed groups of larks and buntings. I ended up banding 58 birds (33 buntings, 24 larks, 1 longspur) but I would estimate that these represented well less than 25% of the birds that dropped in to the trap area.

I wanted to try an experiment as Dick Stauffer, a Snow Bunting colleague in Alberta, has asked a number of times about what would be the best bait for buntings. I have always used cut/cracked corn. But today I thought I would put it to the test. In one of the traps (the top one in the photo above) I baited with an ordinary millet-based bird seed. There was a definite preference for the cut corn. Only 3 birds (5%) were attracted to the typical bird seed mix. Dick has had a frustratingly hard time out West luring birds to his traps. Maybe they don’t like cut corn….
Rick