Alberta

It's been a while since I wrote anything here. Fear not, nothing bad has happened, I've just been very active and tardy in writing anything new. Anyway, here is a short precis: November -January - Mostly in the lab at Kingston. Did my first ski-O and realised that I'd better improve my skiing if I'm to be at all competitive. February-March - Travelled to Southern California and spent lots of time in the desert. Great Fun. April - An all too brief return to the UK, can't wait until next time. Since May I've been busy working in Alberta doing plant surveys. This has taken me across the province from the foothills near Jasper all the way to the Montana border. I've also enjoyed some hiking in the mountains, canoeing and lots more.

Kingston

This week I started work in Kingston, Ontario at the Queens University Isotope research facility. We'll be here for the next two months or so conducting hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis upon several hundred feathers collected from Western Sandpipers. The work is not exactly riveting, but the results should be (fingers crossed). So far we have labelled lots of glass jars, filled them with feathers and started washing them in a chloroform and methanol solution. Hopefully we'll start getting some results in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime cue lots of tedium! The weekends should be slightly more exciting as winter is starting to approach.

Leaving Powdermill

Dawn over Powdermill

After an all to brief three week stay at Powdermill it is already time to return to Ontario. During the past two weeks I have had few new species, but the birds we've caught have definately been memorable. Cheif amongst these have been two American Woodcocks, a Yellow-billed Cuckoo and two Sharp-shinned Hawks (male & female).

Yellow-billed Cuckoo

In the latter part of my stay our capture success was greatly influenced by the weather with precious days being lost to wind and rain. During the first week of October the number of warblers declined sharply and we began to the wait for the arrival of the sparros, Yellow-rumped Warblers and kinglets. The sparrows did arrive and so did a few kinglets, but the Yellow-rumps remained scarce until I left. Maybe they migrated past while we were experiencing the poor weather? Or will they arrive later? I'll have to keep an eye on the Powdermill bird banding website/.

Examining moult

In all I had a great stay, learning a lot about identifying the birds of Eastern North America, how to apply my existing knowledge of bird moult to the patterns found in Eastern birds and enjoying the colours of Autumn. I was sad to leave, but I'm sure that I'll return at some point. Thanks to everyone I met who helped make the trip so wonderful.

Blue-headed Vireo

Allegheny Front Migration Observatory

Last Wednesday I got an unexpected opportunity to visit Allegheny Front Migration Observatory in West Virginia. Never one to turn up an opportunity I volunteered to spend a day trying to record flight calls of migrating birds.

Set on a long ridge with great views east to the Appalachians the observatory catches birds as they try to cross the lowest point of the ridge. When the wind blows from the correct direction (west), the birds which come from the east are forced to fly very low when the encounter the west winds at the top of the ridge. Its at this point that they are caught in the observatory's mist nets.

I wasn't involved in the actual catching effort. instead my job was to assist with the recording of flight calls made by migrating warblers. This involved placing birds in sound proof containers with a microphones and playing similar calls to them in the hope of eliciting a response. When this happened the call was picked up by the microphone and displayed in real-time on a computer. It was really interesting to see and hear the magnitude of the different between species. The aim of making these records is to build a library of calls which hopefully will allow automated monitoring stations to record species, age, sex and maybe more about birds migrating past these stations, so it turned out to be a really great day, as a season best 472 were caught during the morning with a great array of species available to record.

Cape May Warbler

Blackburnian Warbler

Tennessee Warbler

Blue-winged Warbler

So it seems that the new species are beginning to slow up a little as I didn't get any yesterday. Still this adult male Blue-winged Warbler was a rare treat.

3 more species today

Today we caught three more new species amongst another successful day of banding.

• Mourning Warbler
• Veery
• Wood Thrush

First day of banding at Powdermill

Despite some rather poor weather we caught over 150 birds of 30 species. Amongst these were 12 species which I had never seen before.

• Magnolia Warbler
• Black-throated Blue Warbler
• Chestnut-sided Warbler
• Hooded Warbler
• Tennessee Warbler
• Philadelphia Vireo
• Cape May Warbler
• Swamp Sparrow
• Grey-cheeked Thrush
• Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
• Blackpoll Warbler
• Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Not a bad start by any standards.

Indigo Bunting

Northern Parula

Powdermill arrival

I finally made it to Powdermill in the late afternoon after they had finished ringing for the day. It seems I arrived a day too late, as they caught 46 species today and over 200 birds. In fact, this was the reason that they were delayed in picking me up from Latrobe. Powdermill is situated among mature broad-leaved woodland in gently rolling hills away from any major developments. As the leaves start to change colour it is truly a beautiful place. At first glance its not easy to see what would make this a good place to capture large numbers of migrating birds. After having a short walk around the banding station this evening I'm beginning to have my first ideas. Firstly, there are more nets setup here than anywhere I've ever been previously, between 65-70 with the majority of these being 12m in length. That said, they don't cover a spectacularly large area, as most are placed in combinations of 2 or more nets. Secondly, the nets cover a diverse range of habitats including forest fringe, "old field", marshy areas and a few ponds, although almost all are in some form of "scrub" habitat alongside. However, I suspect that this is the wrong scale to be looking at, rather the most important aspect may be that these habitats all fall within a large clearing in the forest, making it a relatively attractive stopover location. Overnight there was a lady visiting who was catching bats. Owing to the early start the next day I only observed the first hour or so, but we caught a Long-eared Bat and a Little Brown Bat. I also heard my first Eastern Screech Owl tonight.

Powdermill

Yesterday I set off for Powdermill in Western Pennsylvania. As I write I'm not quite there yet. I'm in Latrobe, a cutesy old-fashioned town with the distinct air of a retirement community and 2 claims to fame. 1, it's the birthplace of golf legend Arnold Palmer and 2, it was home to the first ever Banana split! So far its been quite a journey so far involving changes in Toronto, Buffalo, Cleveland and Pittsburgh (during the G20 summits and the ensuing riots) and staying up for what seems like more than half the night. However, if what I hear is true then it'll be well worth the effort. Roll on the next 3 weeks.

Ontario Break

I've been in Ontario the last few days on holiday and will not be back in Vancouver until the new year. So far during this break I've been Sailing (twice), Canoeing and spotted three new bird species. All in all, just what I needed.

More Scotering

I was back Scotering again for three days over this last week during which we caught 257 birds. The highlights for me included banding my first Red-necked Grebe and seeing Grey Whales up close as they fed in the shallow waters of the bay.

A radio tagged White-winged Scoter swims away after being released

White-winged Scoter waiting to be released

Breaching Grey Whale

With my first Red-necked Grebe

Scotering

The last two days I've been volunteering with the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife and Simon Fraser University catching moulting White-winged and Surf Scoters in the Fraser River Estuary and on Boundary Bay.

In the later summer after breeding, Scoters (a type of sea duck) come to shallow coastal waters to feed and moult their feathers. Durign this period they lose the ability to fly and form large flocks. This nakes them considerably easier to catch. Even so, the level of resource required is impressive (2 boats and 2 zodiacs).

The two days were great fun, although long days on the ocean are pretty tiring and going about one's business in rather trickier than on land.

We caught a total of 120 birds and I my forearms got nicely scratched (yes duck do actually have claws!). Also I saw Killer Whales for the first time and there were also some Grey Whales around. Can't wait until next time.

The gil net with caught scoters floating on the ocean surface

Two male Surf Scoters await processing in 5 star accomodation

A male Surf Scoter gets measured.

Vancouver Island road trip

After one final trip to the mudflat catching sandpipers on Thursday we headed to the ferry terminal and Vancouver Island. After staying the night with friends in hot and dry Saanich at the south end of Vancouver Island we set off for our destination, Port Hardy at the other end of the Island and a mere 500km away. After 7 hours on the road interspersed by a few stops to go swimming (the weather in vancouver has been very hot and humid this last week) we eventually arrived in a mild foggy and very green Port Hardy. Since this was a work trip we didn't have a lot of time to explore the north of the Island, but it was enough to get a flavour and a desire to come back.

Sam alert at the wheel

A confiding grouse at one of the swimming spots

Lake swimming

The estuary at Port Hardy where we couldn't help but notice some feeding Western Sandpipers

American Dipper at Marble River Provincial Park

Beautiful Port Alice

R

This last week I taught my first introductory workshops in using R for statistical analysis. I've never aspired to be a teacher, but it was certainly enjoyable sharing my far from impressive knowledge of R with a group of R beginners. To be fair, it was a mutual learning experience. I certainly benefited from preparing the material for the class and the questions which arose from our discussions. It seems that there is interest for more on R, so hopefully over the next few months I can put together a more comprehensive introduction to R.

Glacier National Park, BC

Just back from an awesome trip to Glacier national park in the Rocky Mountains of BC. The hiking was steep with lots of views and the alpine flowers were just starting to flower at the higher elevations. The birding was also pretty successful and included a few new species for my life list:

American Redstart

Least Flycatcher

Red-eyed Vireo

Clay-coloured Sparrow

Amusingly, Sam got a even more lifers than me!