Teslin Lake update, October 10 2014

A mixed flock of Tundra and Trumpeter Swans passing the point

The end of September marks the end of the standard banding season but every year we continue with non-standard banding effort as long as we have adequate personnel or the weather turns too harsh to band. This year neither mattered as there simply were no birds along the net-lanes in early October. Our longest serving volunteer of the season, Sarah Nägl, moved on and continued her adventures on the 6th and Chris Sukha who came up from Mackenzie banding station headed back down the highway on the 8th. The weather was unsettled to say the least and we received snow on a few occasions early in the month. I didn't even check for this blog entry but I think with the little effort the weather allowed for us we were able to catch and band a whopping three birds!

It may well be that the same Horned Grebe has spent almost a month by TLBO. In that time the appearance has changed quite a bit as it has now molted into the winter plumage.

This Gray-cheeked Thrush foraged openly on the beach in the afternoon of Oct 1st

 No birds in the nets did not mean no birds period. The month started with a howling northwest wind and snow that, on the 1st, brought us so far the best flight of the season. Early morning many flocks of swans, cranes and ducks disappeared into the low hanging clouds and the strong wind kept us off the usual watch site at the tip forcing us to seek shelter from the south side shore where the visibility isn't quite the same as from the tip. In spite of the difficulties caused by the weather we counted about 3800 Tundra Swans, 800 ducks of various species, 250 Sandhill Cranes in many small flocks and over 400 raptors (Red-tailed Hawk 189, Golden Eagle 93, Sharp-shinned Hawk 64, Rough-legged Hawk 28 and Merlin 15). Both the number of Golden Eagles and of Merlins is a new one day record for the observatory! Other sightings of interest that day were also a record count of 48 Canvasbacks, 169 Snow Geese, the season 1st Snow Bunting and a Gray-cheeked Thrush that appeared on the beach in the afternoon looking for some warmth in the sun that had also appeared by then.

The heavy snowfall on the 9th was apparent in the accumulation on the back of this juvenile Thayer's Gull!

On the 9th, both this Lapland Longspur (above) and the American Pipit (below) were foraging on the about one foot wide bare belt along the shore that was kept snow free by the waves.

The next few days didn't offer much excitement. Two Mountain Bluebirds stopped at the tip briefly on the 3rd and 40 Canvasbacks and 15 Golden Eagles were seen on the 4th. On the 7th there was again some movement but nothing like on the 1st. That day 1200 swans were tallied, again mostly Tundras but this time also a good number (130) of Trumpeters mixed in too. Many flocks of swans were only heard as it was snowing heavily for about half of the day! After the snow stopped over 100 raptors were counted also, including Sharp-shinned Hawk 29, Golden Eagle 26, Red-tailed Hawk 24 and Rough-legged Hawk 20. Among the raptors there was one southbound Northern Hawk Owl. 400 more swans were seen on the 10th but other than that the visible migration was slow after the 7th. The most exciting bird of the period was an adult Black-legged Kittiwake that was seen just before a major snowfall started on the 9th and again on the 10th constituting the 2nd record for TLBO and only the 3rd fall and overall about the 7th record for the southern Yukon!

A distant, heavily cropped, document shot of the Kittiwake

A family of Tundra Swans landing at the creek mouth for a couple of minutes breather.

Teslin Lake update, September 30 2014

Raptor-eye view of TLBO (the small point in the middle on the foreshore)! This is what TLBO looks like from the raptor mountain often featured in photos of this blog. Photo © Vesta Mather

Well, this is a blog entry of a ten day period at TLBO unlike any other before. Sure there was rain and wind, lots of them, and even some snow but none of that bad weather can explain the nearly complete lack of birds in the nets. We only banded 38 birds (!!) during the day time effort and further 16 owls at night for a grand total of 54. Northern Shrike and Hermit Thrush, both on the 26th, were new species for the season. A Winter/Pacific Wren, a recent split where the identification criteria for non-vocalizing birds is yet to be established, was banded on the 22nd and was a new species for the site. TLBO's 1st ever Northern Saw-whet Owl was banded the same evening and amazingly another one was banded at our separate owl site the following night!

Winter/Pacific Wren

The 1st Northern Saw-whet Owl for TLBO! Below is the second one - so cute, so small!

The biggest news, however, were caused by the TLBO's 1st and roughly the Yukon's 5th Turkey Vulture that flew by on the 24th. Unfortunately it didn't come close enough for even record shots. On the same morning a juvenile Gyrfalcon put up a nice show by chasing some local gulls and sitting in various spruce trees for great scope views and some poor photos as it was so early in the morning that there was almost no light for photos. Another Gyrfalcon flew by on the 27th. Black-bellied Plover is a pretty common fall migrant in the Yukon so it may come as a surprise to our readers that the flocks of 11 and 17 birds seen on the 21st were only the 2nd and 3rd record for TLBO, something that the staff is equally baffled about!

An early morning juvenile Gyrfalcon

Other sightings of somewhat uncommon birds at TLBO included yet another Sanderling on the 21st, four Redheads and two Harlequin Ducks on the 23rd and an unidentified winter-plumaged Phalarope way out on the lake on the same day. A Belted Kingfisher seen on the 29th was the only bird seen that was behind its usual departure time. However, several species were seen for the first time this season: Long-tailed Duck and Long-billed Dowitcher on the 21st, and Tundra Swan, Ring-necked Duck and Glaucous Gull on the 23rd. Of uncommon migrants  72 Snow Geese were seen on the 24th and 82 on the 30th, 37 Canvasbacks on the 21st and 12 on the 23rd, and 13 Sandhill Cranes on the 21st, 69 on the 29th and 10 on the 30th.

Northern Pintail traveling with Canada Geese

A light-morph juvenile Harlan's Hawk is a funky looking thing!

Usually the big news at this time of the year are the big southbound flights of various species but so far we've had very few exciting movements happen. On the 21st under cloudy skies and rain 157 Lesser Scaup and 71 Pacific Loons were counted. Neither is a very high count but so far the highest for the season as was the count of 263 Canada Geese on the 23rd. On the 24th the wind turned north and the skies cleared, unfortunately, as the raptors climbed high and were very difficult to spot against the blue sky. We did manage to spot 195 of them, mostly Red-tailed (66) and Sharp-shinned Hawks (62) but also 16 American Kestrels and 10 Golden Eagles were seen. 119 White-winged Scoters on the following day was a record count for TLBO. On the 29th, without a warning from the weather forecast, the wind was suddenly blowing from northwest. With the wind came the first flight of Tundra Swans (615) and 305 raptors (123 Red-tails, 80 Rough-legged Hawks, 51 Sharp-shinns, and 27 Northern Harriers among others) were counted too. On the 30th as the snow flew a few more raptors were sailing the stormy nortwesterlies but no high counts were reached.

A seemingly black and white but actually wonderfully colorful Black-billed Magpie having some Burbot for breakfast

Chris Sukha (R) trying to prevent further bloodshed by holding the Shrike's bill as Jukka Jantunen (L) bands with already bleeding fingers! Photo © Sarah Nägl 

Here are the banding totals as of Sept 30 including birds banded as part of the owling effort (the number in brackets is the number banded since the last blog entry):

Sharp-shinned Hawk - 14

Solitary Sandpiper - 1

Wilson's Snipe - 1

Boreal Owl - 35 (17)

Northern Saw-whet Owl - 2 (2)

Belted Kingfisher - 9

Downy Woodpecker - 1

Western Wood-Pewee - 4

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher - 3

Alder Flycatcher - 506

Least Flycatcher - 2

Hammond's Flycatcher - 8

Dusky Flycatcher - 4

Northern Shrike - 1 (1)

Warbling Vireo - 12

Gray Jay - 1

Black-capped Chickadee - 16 (1)

Boreal Chickadee - 3

Red-breasted Nuthatch - 3

Winter/Pacific Wren - 1 (1)

Ruby-crowned Kinglet - 69 (2)

Gray-cheeked Thrush - 10

Swainson's Thrush - 49

Hermit Thrush - 1 (1)

American Robin - 9

Varied Thrush - 3

Tennessee Warbler - 1

Orange-crowned Warbler - 149

Yellow Warbler - 504

Yellow-rumped Warbler - 177 (5)

Townsend's Warbler - 10

Blackpoll Warbler - 61

American Redstart - 25

Northern Waterthrush - 48

Common Yellowthroat - 82 (3)

Wilson's Warbler - 164 (1)

American Tree Sparrow - 21 (5)

Chipping Sparrow - 15

Savannah Sparrow - 17

Fox Sparrow - 17 (1)

Lincoln's Sparrow - 9 (1)

White-crowned Sparrow - 15

Golden-crowned Sparrow - 1

Slate-coloured Junco - 139 (9)

Rusty Blackbird - 10 (1)

Brown-headed Cowbird - 2

Purple Finch - 3

White-winged Crossbill - 2

Common Redpoll - 1

Pine Siskin - 303 (6)

Total = 2544 (54) birds of 50 species