RPBO has had a long association with Cam Finlay's hummingbird banding project. Prior to obtaining our permit to band hummingbirds at Rocky Point, several of Cam's subpermittees banded the hummingbirds incidentally captured in the RPBO mistnets and added the data to Cam's results.
Over the years, he trained dozens of people to band hummingbirds visiting sites around the province wherever a large number of birds was to be found. A few years ago, Cam joined forces with the Hummingbird Monitoring Network based in Arizona to provide standardized monitoring of hummingbirds during their migration and breeding in British Columbia. What started as a backyard project for Cam is now a major endeavor to track and monitor four species of hummingbirds throughout BC. The workshop also served as the venue for the "passing of the torch" as Cam celebrated his well-deserved retirement. Alison Moran has assumed the leadershop role for this project and will be joining the Rocky Point board at our next meeting.
In addition to the mark-recapture aspect of the project, RPBO board member and Royal Roads University professor Jonathan Moran has been conducting stable isotope research on the feathers of captured birds, and had been discovering some interesting facts about their wintering habits. Watch for more information on Jonathan's research in coming months.
Perhaps the best thing about the hummingbird project is that so many volunteers are already in place throughout the province. We expect the administrative transitions to be smooth and the project to thrive over the coming years!
Since 2003, RPBO has been running a spring bird banding and monitoring workshop on the Royal Roads University grounds. Each year, the format changes just a little based on the feedback received from the participants. This year, in addition to the field sessions, introduction, and specimen labwork, we added a night of owl monitoring using an audio lure and a study skin preparation session.
We heard a few owls while trying to lure them into the nets, but were not successful in capturing and banding one. However, some participants might have been feeling a little relieved about that particular outcome! Prior to the owl session, Greg Sam and Aldeen Mason of Royal Roads University spoke to the group about the significance of certain birds, including owls, in First Nations culture. We learned that the owl isn't a particularly welcome visitor in many societies, being a forebearer of mostly negative events, such as a death. Aldeen also read us a children's book about an owl named Ko-ko-ho-ho--an Ojibwe name easily recognized by the birders in the room as the call of the Barred Owl.
In addition to being a wonderful educational opportunity, the banding workshop serves as RPBO's major fund-raising event. Another workshop is being planned for 2010.
Our fifteenth season of migration monitoring gets underway at Rocky Point on July 21. New BIC Ron Melcer will be joined by an intern provided by the Science Horizons Youth Internship program as well as new and experienced volunteers.
Rocky Point is an active military site, and we anticipate several no-access days again this year. We'll be using those days to provide training for volunteers at another location (most likely Royal Roads University). If you are interested in volunteering for monitoring or participating in the training, please contact volunteer@rpbo.org.
The workshop held in Veron on June 6 and 7 was the first time so many of the HPBC volunteers had gathered in one place. It was also a fitting event to celebrate Cam's contribution to the project. At a dinner on Saturday evening, he was feted by many banders he'd trained and presented with a beautiful hummingbird sculpture created and donated by Don McPherson.
The workshop also featured Susan Wetherington and Lee Rogers of the Hummingbird Monitoring Network. Susan and Lee have been evaluating the effects of poorly manufactured bands on the health of the birds and have developed new tools and techniques to minimize the risk. For the banders, this will mean an increase in the work and expense involved in producing the bands. However, it is a necessary step to ensure that we don't harm the subjects of our monitoring. It is the goal of HPBC to purchase sufficient tools to have a "bank" from which banders can borrow the needed gear, rather than each person having to buy their own.
The folks in Vernon were great hosts. Thanks especially to Tekmar for providing an excellent meeting location and Gail Loughridge and Jim Bodkin for putting on a wonderful welcome barbeque on Friday night.
Our new MAPS site at Witty's Lagoon Park is proving to be very successful, with more birds banded there on the first three days of monitoring than at Rocky Point. Highlights at the Witty's Lagoon site include a pair of Olive-sided Flycatchers side-by-side in a net, and of course, MAPS at Rocky Point provided the Chestnut-sided Warbler.
We did not set up a MAPS site at Royal Roads University this year, as we didn't have sufficient human resources to run three sites. All the more reason to get volunteers trained and eligible for subpermits. Both the Witty's and RRU sites are more labour-intensive than the RPBO site, as the nets have to be set up and taken down for each banding day. If you aren't a morning person, but would like to help out with net set up, it takes place the late afternoon or evening immediately prior to banding.