January 11th-15th: Chasing A Wave

Had full traps on the 13th.


Banding is a waiting game that requires patience. As I’ve railed on ad nauseum, to catch Snow Buntings in this area you need two things: cold temperatures and snow. While many had been extolling the mild Winter we’ve been experiencing, I was hoping for cold….and some snow. Finally, we got both starting on the 11th – a few centimeters of fresh snow through the night of the 10th and temperatures dropping to -7 C. I headed out to my site at the York Airport with high expectations. Now, this isn’t what I would call a prime site. True, it sits on the edge of an extensive open cropped field with no nearby shrubbery/trees that might conceal avian predators and it sports a flat gravel pad good for parking and setting traps. But, it’s right next to a road (RR 9) which is fairly busy first thing in the morning as people head off to work or school kids to buildings of higher learning.

Still, I’ve worked hard over the past few years to entice birds to come. I’ve done this by baiting with cut corn daily, starting in early December, with a view to luring Horned Larks which, in turn, will lure passing Snow Buntings searching for a place to eat in this desert of industrially farmed fields. The strategy has worked well. I haven’t got prodigious numbers of birds but I have caught consistently (and without having to travel very far from home).

The “flow” started the morning of the 11th. I set traps at 7:35, 20 minutes before sunrise/light (as the sun would be obscured by cloud cover). There were no birds at the site but ten minutes later a group of 30 larks flew in to take a look and were joined quickly by another group of 15. They were very skittish: dropping in, flying up and circling, and then dropping in again. Once they felt the site was reasonably safe – and that big black thing was just a rock rather than a car with a spellbound human inside – they approached the traps and very quickly made their way inside. By 8:30 there were as many as 80 Horned Larks in the immediate trap vicinity and there were a very few Snow buntings mixed in with them. The birds would feed quickly and then fly out into the open field before moving in again. The only deterrent was the noise of large vehicles – trucks, school buses, heavily-tired pick-ups – that would “spook” them; they’d fly up, circle and settle again. (But this disturbance would interfere with their finding a way into the traps.

By 11:00 things had slowed considerably even though a flock of about 150 Snow Buntings was seen in the distance by the airport – but they weren’t moving our way. At the end of the day we’d banded 39 Horned Larks and 4 Snow Buntings…so some buntings had been paying attention!

The 12th demonstrated that buntings are early risers. On setting the traps at 7:10 I noticed that ALL the corn I had set out when refurbishing the bait piles yesterday afternoon were consumed. Although it was still quite dark I picked out movement: 11 Snow Buntings somehow materialized at the traps. Where had they come from? I scanned the field and started to pick out Snow Bunting heads emerging from behind snow-covered clods of earth. The birds had spent the night huddled down in the lee of these small mounds of dirt. By 7:25 a flock of 35-40 buntings arrived and were quickly joined by 15 more. By 7:30 there were at least 80 scrambling around the traps. They were very skittish: settling, flying up, settling again. But a number found their way into the food. I banded 43 at the first pass and was gearing up for more when an American Kestrel descended on the traps, scattering the buntings – which did not return for the rest of the morning.

The banding on the 13th occurred in two time slots. I set the traps early (7:15) and saw the same behaviour as yesterday – small groups of buntings flying in from the open field so that by 7:40 there were 80-100 in the immediate trap area. But there was a problem: we were getting a light snow fall but the strong gusting winds were blowing it across the fields. Wire mesh traps act like snow fences and the snow was filling the entrance tunnels and piling up inside them, inhibiting entry and covering the bait. So, after banding 15 Snow Buntings and a Lapland Longspur, I pulled the traps and went home.

The snow stopped mid-morning so I went back at 11:00 to take a look. Conditions were ideal as the wind had rearranged as much snow as it needed to. There were 100+ Snow Buntings at the site. I set the traps, topped the bait piles in each one and for the next 3 hours enjoyed the bonanza: I banded another 76 buntings and 3 Horned Larks.

Kestrels can sure put a damper on Snow Bunting banding. On the the 14th I again got an early start and by 7:30 buntings were at the site. Over the next hour and a half I banded 27 Snow Buntings and 17 Horned Larks; I also handled 22 birds that had been banded earlier – most within the last couple of days and a few from December. But at 9:00 the American Kestrel dropped in and the buntings peeled out of there and didn’t return. Horned Larks showed up – they don’t seem to be as concerned about kestrels as the buntings; wary but not overly concerned. The numbers of buntings seemed to be dropping. At the same time, Marnie at her farm site on Irish Line, was reporting a buildup of buntings with flocks upwards of 200 birds. She has a good site: big open fields but with emerging weed heads and no traffic to concern the birds.

This morning (15th) the wave was drawing down: traps were set early; a group of 15 very skittish snow Buntings flew in, circled numerous times (I think this is their way of taking a good look around for predators) before settling…briefly…and then taking off. I managed to catch 6 buntings and a Lapland Longspur before the male kestrel swooped in and scattered them – and they didn’t return. Around 8:30 a group of 50+ Horned Larks dropped in and I caught 4 of them. They didn’t seem overly concerned about the kestrel which was sitting a short way away on the phone wire – but they fed around the traps, not venturing into them – a good precaution as they could get a fast getaway if needed. While I was looking at diminished numbers, Marnie was reporting a flock of 300+. Maybe it’s time to shift operations there for a bit….the birds seemed to have shifter south.
Rick

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