PEPtBO REPORTS
PEPtBO BANDING REPORTS 2010
2010 Fall Banding Operations Report
Northern Shrike Banded on October 31st - the last day of the fall season 2010.
Photo© Bruce Parker.
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Canada Warbler one of 16 record breaking species for the fall of 2010 Photo© Mark Breaks.
— 8112 birds banded as of October 31 (3rd best), 105 species
— Orchard Oriole, Chimney Swift were added to the Fall banding list
— Glossy Ibis sighting
— Boreal Chickadee banded
— new fall record totals were set for the following species:
Sharp-shinned Hawk, Chimney Swift, Great Crested Flycatcher, Eastern Kingbird, Warbling Vireo, Northern Rough-winged Swallow, Bank Swallow, Red-breasted Nuthatch, American Robin, Canada Warbler,
White-throated Sparrow, Bobolink, Rusty Blackbird, Common Grackle, Brown-headed Cowbird, Orchard Oriole.
Hermit Thrush Banded on October 31st - the last day of the fall season 2010.
Photo© Bruce Parker.
2010 Northern Saw-whet Owl Banding Operations Report
Owl banding finished for the 2010 season on October 31st. 1021 owls were banded for the season.
Check out the Saw-whet Owl Banding Page for the results.
Northern Saw-whet Owl Photo© Bruce Parker.
The night of October 18th was a record night for Barred Owls with 7 banded.
"The Group of Seven" - Barred Owls Photo© David Okines.
2010 PEPtBO Visiting Bander Report
PEPtBO has a number of visiting banders over the course of the spring and fall seasons who come for training with bander-in-charge David Okines, a NABC (North American Banding Council) certified Trainer. Mike Jackson from York, England spent 2 weeks at PEPtBO in October learning about fall species that migrate through Prince Edward Point.
Mike has been banding birds in the United Kingdom, Europe and the Middle East for over 30 years. Most of his banding is done on the National Nature Reserve of the Lower Derwent Valley - the river system which drains the North Yorkshire Moors. According to Mike, during the winter large numbers of wildfowl visit there and the banding work is concentrated on Mallard, Eurasian Widgeon and Eurasian Teal. Most years a cannon net catch of Whooper Swans is taken. In the spring a passage roost of Whimbrel is present and long-term studies of these birds including the use of satellite tags, has revealed much about their movements.
David Okines assists Mike with the banding of Barred Owl. During his 2 week stay Mike banded about 60 new species.
Photos © Bruce Parker.
2010 Spring Banding Operations Report
Banding operations closed for the season on May 31, 2010. Watch for a final report on the Spring Banding results coming soon.
While variable weather conditions may have contributed to an overall lower total from last year, none-the-less new record banding totals were established for: White-eyed Vireo, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Northern Parula, Black-and-White Warbler,
and Mourning Warbler. In addition Chimney Swift was a new banding record for the Observatory.
Mourning Warbler Photo© Bruce Parker
Special Project at PEPtBO - Species at Risk Survey Summer 2010
During the summer of 2010, David Okines, PEPtBO'sbander-in-charge and station manager conducted a baseline birds at risk survey in and around the Prince Edward County South Shore Important Bird Area (PECSS IBA). This area includes diverse natural and cultural habitats that currently or previously supported populations of several bird species at risk. The results of these surveys will clarify the current distribution and abundance and identify species hotspots and habitat associations of the ten target species in the area.
Short-eared Owl Photo© Bruce Parker
| The Ten Target Species | |
|---|---|
Whip-poor-will |
Short-eared Owl |
Black Tern |
Least Bittern |
Red-headed Woodpecker |
Henslow’s Sparrow |
Common Nighthawk |
Bald Eagle |
Loggerhead Shrike |
King Rail |
In addition to the ten targeted species, David also was collecting baseline data on twelve other species in the IBA that are due to have their status reviewed by COSEWIC in the future.
Bank Swallows Photo© Rosemary Kent
| COSEWIC Future Review Species | |
|---|---|
Bobolink |
Grasshopper Sparrow |
Eastern Kingbird |
Field Sparrow |
Golden-winged Warbler |
American Kestrel |
Killdeer |
Eastern Wood Pewee |
Wood Thrush |
Belted Kingfisher |
Bank Swallow |
Barn Swallow |
Data from the baseline surveys will be provided to the Natural Heritage Information Centre and shared with relevant stakeholders particularly the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (Point Petre Provincial Wildlife Area and Ostrander Block) and Canadian Wildlife Service (Prince Edward Point NWA). It will be used to develop a work plan for continuing and expanding birds at risk stewardship activities beyond 2010, including additional surveys, partnership development, and public outreach.
Funding for this project is being provided by the Species at Risk Stewardship Fund, a fund established by the Ministry of Natural Resources to stimulate and enhance investment in species at risk protection and recovery.
To read an article written by Terry Sprague for the Picton Gazette about the project click here.
A Rare Visitor to Prince Edward County 2010
Black-bellied Whistling Duck Photo© Bruce Parker
While doing some bird surveys in Prince Edward County on the evening of Sunday July 13th 2010 David Okines, Bander-in-Charge at PEPTBO found a Black-bellied Whistling Duck on a small pond along County Road 10, south of Milford. According to David this pond rarely has anything other than the usual Mallards and Killdeer (plus cattle) on it but he stopped to look anyway. The BBWD was feeding and then preening at the northern edge of the pond that was nearest to the road, it then flew to the centre of the pond and continued to feed. This is the first record of this species for Prince Edward County which now brings the Birding Checklist to 350 species according to Terry Sprague.
David's discovery brought large numbers of birders from Canada and the United States into Prince Edward County to see this rare visitor.
The Canadian Migration Monitoring Network Ten-Year Report on Monitoring Landbird Population Change Technical Report #1
by Tara L. Crewe, Jon D. McCracken, Philip D. Taylor, Denis Lepage, & Audrey E. Heagy
The Canadian Migration Monitoring Network (CMMN) was formed in 1998 as a cooperative venture among a dozen independent migration monitoring stations, Bird Studies Canada (BSC) and the Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS). Since then the network has expanded to over 20 stations across Canada that monitor spring and/or fall migration of over 150 species of landbirds, about 80 of which breed in Canada’s boreal and other northern forests and are relatively inaccessible to other monitoring programs such as the Breeding Bird Survey.
Recently BSC published Technical Report #1 on behalf of the network, a report on monitoring landbird population change over the 10 years, 1997-2006. The full report is available at: http://www.bsc-eoc.org/download/CMMNReport2008.pdf
Data from 11 stations, including Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory (PEPtBO), were used to calculate and assess trends in populations of migrants in spring. Similar data were used for the fall migration, but PEPtBO was not included in that analysis because it did not start its fall monitoring program until 2001 and consequently did not have the 10 years of data required for analysing fall trends.
There was a lot of variability in trends detected at different stations and in different regions across Canada. In general, there were more positive trends detected in Ontario and western regions and more negative trends in the prairie and eastern regions. Remarkably, PEPtBO spring data showed mainly positive trends, with 49 species increasing and only 6 declining. Moreover, none of those declines was statistically significant (meaning that they could be attributable to chance rather than a real or consistent trend), while 18 of the increases were significant (meaning that they were probably real and unlikely to be due to chance).
Of course, as with the stock market, large rates of increase cannot persist indefinitely and we can expect these trends to level off, decline, or even crash in the future. Ten years is not long enough to detect a truly long-term trend, which is one reason why it is important to keep on monitoring migration following a strict protocol into the future.
Accurate knowledge of population status and trends is fundamental to species conservation, if scarce resources are to be allocated wisely. The CMMN report draws on data from member stations across Canada and feeds into the big picture conservation planning process. A recent example of a wider scale assessment is a report entitled: “Population trend status of Ontario’s forest birds”, authored by 18 experts, including representatives of BSC, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, and Environment Canada (CWS); see: http://www.cif-ifc.org/uploads//Website_Assets/Blancher_et_al.pdf. It integrates results of several surveys, including CMMN. The experts who authored this assessment identified several species that exhibited serous declines, but their overall conclusion was that “Trends of most forest birds were stable or positive at the Ontario-wide scale…” This picture differs from alarming reports of massive declines in migratory songbirds that you may have seen in the media in recent months. Nevertheless, it is the best scientifically-based assessment of the true situation. PEPtBO and other CMMN member stations contribute to this knowledge, which is an important building block for conservation.
For more information on CMMN visit: http://www.bsc-eoc.org/volunteer/cmmn
--- David Hussell
Bird Migration Indices At PEPtBO
Bird Studies Canada gathers statistics on migration from each of the bird observatories that are members of the Canadian Migration Monitoring Network. Bird migration trend graphs are available for each observatory including Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory at:
http://www.bsc-eoc.org/volunteer/cmmn/migmain.jsp
Below is a sample of the graphs that can be viewed for different species of birds banded in the Spring and Fall At PEPtBO.
Spring: + 13.44%/year (1998-2005) *
Fall: + 14.73%/year (2001-2005) n.s.
Legend: Trend values were calculated using Spring or Fall migration data and trends are presented in percent change per year. A negative value indicates a population decline and a positive value a population increase over the period covered at the respective station. Significance level of the trends is indicated by: *** P < 0.005; ** P < 0.01; * P < 0.05; n.s. P > 0.05.
