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!