Llangorse Ringing Group: Fall banding in British Columbia

Monday, 6 October 2014

Fall banding in British Columbia

In mid September, Ron and Jerry spent a couple of weeks volunteering at Vaseux Lake Bird Obsevatory in British Columbia. The site was located in the Okanagan valley (the main wine producing area in Canada), about a five/six hour drive east from Vancouver. The site was a small marsh at the head of Vaseux Lake, where 14 nets were set in the scrub fringing the marsh. The weather was superb - settled, clear skies and temperatures mainly in the mid 20's C. Unfortunately, this meant that bird numbers were limited, with most moving south at a higher elevation on the hillsides, it really needed a few rainy conditions to get the birds into the valley, and into the nets. Despite this, 256 birds of 25 species were banded in 13 days. The highest catch was on 14 Sept - just 40 + (11). Birds comprised mainly warblers and sparrows, with the main species Common Yellowthroat - 63, Orange Crowned Warbler - 57, Song Sparrow - 34 and Lincoln's Sparrow - 32. All other species were caught in single figures.

Nets were unfurled daily at just after 6am, and were set for six hours, with plenty of time for birding in the afternoon/evening. Our second week coincided with owl movements, and a few of the nets, plus two (larger mesh) owl nets, were opened again at 19.30 for another six hours. We don't know how Doug (ringer in charge) managed to keep going with such little sleep, and we didn't spent too much time "owling" - just long enough to catch two Northern Saw-whets. Some of the other star birds were Red-breasted Sapsucker (1^st for the site, as it has a more coastal distribution), Dusky Flycatcher, Warbling Vireo, Pacific Wren (just split from Winter Wren, which was only split from "our" Wren about 20 years ago), Marsh Wren, Yellow Warbler, Wilson's Warbler, Nashville Warbler, Savannah Sparrow and American Goldfinch.

No raptors were caught, and although there was a raptor net, it was "trashed" on our first day - probably by a deer. Several of the nets had deer damage in the bottom panels, sometimes the culprit was Black Bear, and we saw seven during our stay. The closest at about 40m, but most were on the wooded hillside on the opposite side of the valley.

Ron's best bird was the Saw-whet, though he was also impressed with very close views of a Pileated Woodpecker. Jerry's best bird was the Pacific Wren, but long after he has forgotten about that, he'll remember the views of the Bears.

Accommodation was excellent - a large cabin (Scudder House) owned by The Nature Trust/Environment Canada, with two bathrooms, three bedrooms, kitchen and a couple of living rooms. Several previous occupants had left large quantities of food (tins and frozen) so we didn't have to do too much shopping. The only other occupants during our stay were a couple of Rattlesnake researchers, unfortunately their study area was too far away for us to accompany them without missing a day's ringing.