:: Wild Places Blog ::

Had to pass on details of this position - i spent Spring 2008 as the bander-in charge at Innis Point Bird Observatory and enjoyed every minute. The birds are great, both for watching and ringing and the BO directors and volunteers are a  great bunch of people.
“VOLUNTEER BANDING ASSISTANT–Innis Point Bird Observatory, near Ottawa, [...]

25th September 2009

Apart from the “morning rush” of sparrows things were pretty quiet. A sharpie got caught in net 7 - i think he was after the Slate-coloured Junco in there but ended up well tangled around his feet before he could do any damage.
Lots of Geese on the move and Blue Jays are moving [...]

18th September 2009
A slowish day with a brisk southerly wind. Plenty of Orange-crowned Warblers (11) and a few Nashville and Myrtle Warblers. We caught and ringed a Yellow-shafted Flicker - always a fun (and VERY noisy) bird to handle.

No. ringed today:
38

No. of species today:
12

Ringed so far this season:
4428

19th September 2009
The first Brown [...]

A pretty slow week ringing-wise with only 357 birds captured. Great week for visible migration though with plenty of Sandhill Cranes, Canada Geese, duck (mainly Mallard but some Pintail, Gadwall and American Wigeon) and gulls (Ring-billed and Franklins).
11th September 2009
A slow and drizzly day cut short when the rain came down heavier at 10am. There [...]

A SLOW week! The weather was settled all week, the southerly winds meaning birds were only trickling through so not much to tell this week. Things are slowly changing and we’ve woken up to the sound of Canada Geese passing overhead a few mornings this week. No Snow Geese through yet, but soon…
4th September 2009
An [...]

Definitely a week of extremes - from a 295 bird day to  a day with only 22 birds. Ringing tick for Ian of Conneticut Warbler and “bird of the week” has to be the Golden-winged Warbler that turned up in the net on the 2nd September - the first time since 1996 one has been [...]

21st August 2009
A steady day with 121 birds ringed. Belen was resting up after her fall from the ringing room steps yesterday so Ian and i did all the net checks. Only 5 nets open as it was a fairly strong northerly wind.

No. ringed today:
121

No. of species today:
19

Ringed so far this season:
2178

22nd [...]

Rather worrying start to the week when i found out that my daughter, Kat, back in the UK, had contracted swine ‘flu. She works on the “front line” in a hospital so it’s hardly surprising and of course the good old NHS hadn’t yet got round to giving any staff their vaccinations.
14th August 2009
A deep, [...]

Yet another week plagued by bad weather, so much different from the last time i was here at this time of year (2006).
7th August 2009
Rain on and off all morning and the wind gradually increasing so observations only today. Lots of swallows around as there usually is when the weather is like this - Cliff, [...]

31st July 2009
Our first non-ringing day - steady rain when we woke up and that continued all day. No ringing, no  census. So, a day to catch up with data entry. I had hoped we’d have made it to 1,000 birds today - the end of July, but it wasn’t to be.

No. [...]