RPBO Banding Workshop and Banded Bird

Well, we are now in full birding nerd mode!! The last couple of weeks have been crazy to say the least but very rewarding too even though we have no new lifers to report.

We had the opportunity to take little 2 year old Gavin on his first birding excursion and at least to us he seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself especially when it came to feeding the Mallards at Swan Lake.

Robyn and Gavin feeding Mallards

We attended the Rocky Point Bird Observatory's Bird Banding Workshop that was held at the Royal Roads University here in Victoria, BC. This was a workshop that we were so looking forward to attend and it was simply an amazing experience. Over 3 long days, we were taught how to band and extract passerines during the morning sessions in the field and attended lectures about molting lead by Eric Demers, Ph.D., RPBio, Biology from the Vancouver Island University (VIU).  Other lectures were about Rufous Hummingbird research and the Northern Saw-whet Owl program at Rocky Point which we are involved in and we also had the chance to work with lab specimens from across Canada. The RPBO volunteers did an amazing job of hosting this workshop and we highly recommend it to anyone who is seriously thinking of taking their birding to the next level.

Robyn aging a Fox Sparrow by molt.

Robyn's Fox Sparrow ready to be released.

Acacia Spencer-Hills guides me through the

 banding process on a Dark-eyed Junco.

Last weekend we volunteered for a few hours at the VIU Bird Banding Station in Nanaimo, BC to help with set up before the banding season begins this week. It was great to visit another banding station and in particular this one which is lead by Eric Demers.

The VIU Bird Banding Station

An amazing location at Buttertubs Marsh - West

Our yard continues to be a beehive of activity as migrating species are starting to show up. A new visitor to the yard is a Lincoln's Sparrow and a returning Rufous Hummingbird. A couple days ago I spotted a band on an male American Goldfinch and was able to read a partial code. After some sleuthing by Ann Nightingale of RPBO we think it might be
HY Male AMGO 2810-26986 banded on July 28, 2017 at Rocky Point!! How cool is that??

A banded American Goldfinch at one of our feeders.

This coming weekend we are attending a one day workshop on the Nuances of Gull ID in Southwestern BC organized by RPBO in the Parksville / Qualicum area. Yes! We are going to try and figure out gulls!!!  We are also using this as a chance to head up island a few days early for some much needed R&R and see if we can add to our year and life list.

Great news!! We have confirmed that we are heading out on a birding car camping trip into the beautiful Okanagan region of BC during the first week of June and we have no doubt that we will see a number of new lifers that week and maybe, just maybe we can reach our 200 species for 2019 during that time. Fingers crossed!! At least we will be in wine country and should be able to knock off a few bottles during our trip. LOL

So where are we at in terms of numbers? Although we have done a fair bit of birding that past couple of weeks, our numbers haven't changed much but we kind of expected that would be the case.


2019 eBird Stats (as of April 1st)

Mark - 115 species, 14 lifers

Robyn - 114 species, 13 lifers


Total lifers to date: 162