end of season

Believe it or not, it is fall for good now, with even a hint of winter! It was warm for so long this fall that it was hard to be convinced of the season shift.

The nets now have been taken down and stored until the renewal of spring. The fall season of 2007 marked a low in banding total but a high diversity of birds seen and caugth! 1419 birds of 74 species were banded, with 269 Black-capped Chickadees, 148 Golden-crowned Kinglets, 127 White-crowned Sparrows and a record number of 89 Red-breasted Nuthatches.

Many boreal birds were seen in unusually high numbers and frequency this fall: Pine Siskins, Pine Grosbeaks, Common Redpolls (with 4 more banded on the last day of banding, October 30!). A lone Bohemian Waxwing was detected on October 29 flying high in the sky. A group of around 40 was seen gorging on juniper berries a few days later.

Bald Eagles have become a more common sight but it still quite unusual to see 4 soaring together as we did on October 28!

Another season has gone by and it was once more time a great privilege to witness daily the mood and changes of the natural world, to greet the rising sun with the nets ready for a new harvest, to expect the unexpected. It could be looking up as you check the nets on a windy, gray morning and see a brown young Bald Eagle riding low as he fights the wind and being suddenly and ever so quickly lit up by a ray of the rising sun piercing through the cloud cover... Or a Massassauga rattlesnake lying on the path... Or the otter catching crayfish in the basin...

As the bander-in-charge, I would like to acknowledge and thank all the volunteers who helped during the banding this fall! The Station couldn't run without you guys! And even if it could, that wouldn't be as much fun!

So (by order of appearance, as they say in the movies), Jackie, Al, Josh, Lindsay, Tony, Ursula, Karen and Jenni: a big, big thanks!!