RPBO Newsletter February 2010


This Issue's Highlights Spaces Available in Upcoming Banding Workshop RPBO Represented at the AOU/COS/SCO Joint Meeting International Migratory Bird Day - May 8 New Members Join the RPBO Board Upcoming Annual General Meeting Your Membership is Important! Regular Features Thanks for your support! Migration Monitoring News Hummingbird Project of BC News Northern Saw-whet Owl News MAPS News Important Links Membership and Donations Volunteer Contact us	Vol. 3. No. 1 Feb 2010 Download a Printable PDF Version
	This Issue's Highlights
	Spaces Available in Upcoming Banding Workshop Oregon Juncos are a favourite for training. RPBO has been offering introductory avian monitoring and banding workshops since 2003, and has now had close to 100 participants take the course. On March 19 to 21, another group of eager bird enthusiasts will be learning the ropes at Royal Roads University. Please share information about the workshop with others you think may be interested in attending. Return to Top of Page RPBO Represented at the AOU/COS/SCO Joint Meeting RPBO's first foray into the AOU setting. Ron Melcer pulled out all the stops and put RPBO on the scientific map at the American Ornithological Union/Cooper's Ornithological Society/Society of Canadian Ornithologists joint meeting in San Diego in February. With assistance from Rachel Gardiner, Ron completed a trend analysis on five species of sparrows banded at RPBO. You can view this poster and other RPBO publications on the RPBO website. Return to Top of Page International Migratory Bird Day - May 8 RPBO, CRD Parks and VNHS are developing public education events. RPBO Board members Amy Medve and Alison Moran are working with CRD Parks and the Victoria Natural History Society to put on several events on International Migratory Bird Day (IMBD) on Saturday May 8th. This year's theme is "The Power of Partnerships", so it's particularly fitting that our first IMBD will demonstrate what we can accomplish when we pool our resources. Details will be posted on the RPBO website as they become available. Return to Top of Page New Members Join the RPBO Board RPBO is pleased to announce that Jeremy Gatten and Dan McKinnon joined the RPBO Board of Directors in February. Jeremy is well-known in the birding community in BC and beyond, and has volunteered at RPBO for several years. He recently graduated from the University of Northern BC and has been working in the bird biology and ecology fields. Dan McKinnon brings much needed fund-raising experience to the board. He works for the Victoria Foundation, the community foundation that administers the RPBO endowment fund and has provided several grants to RPBO over the years. He was also instrumental in the Witty's Lagoon Teaching Shelter project completed by Leadership Victoria and the Victoria Natural History Society last year. Return to Top of Page Upcoming Annual General Meeting RPBO's Annual General Meeting will be held on Thursday, March 18, 7:00 pm at the Island Savings Credit Union, 2917 Jacklin Road, Langford. All members are welcome to attend, nominate and elect board members and officers for the 2010/11 fiscal year. Our thanks go to retiring board member Gordon Usupiak for his contributions to RPBO. Gordon has returned to school and we wish him the best in his studies. If you have not paid your 2010 membership dues, you can do so online, by sending a cheque to our mailing address, or by paying at the AGM. Return to Top of Page Your Membership is Important With all of the energy put into volunteering at RPBO, it's easy to forget that we need to have society members as well, even if they can't make it out to the banding sites. It's not an onerous task--you can join from the comfort of your own home! The number of members can be a factor in receiving funding to continue our work. Please take a moment to renew your membership or join for the first time. Return to Top of Page
	Regular Features
	Thanks For Your Support! Volunteers come in all shapes and sizes and do all sorts of tasks.Volunteer coordinator Rick Schortinghuis is signing people up for both the MAPS season and for migration monitoring. We're hoping that people will be able to commit to five or more days during the season. If you haven't volunteered with us before, please complete our volunteer application form. We're hoping to have an online scheduling system in place before the banding season begins. Return to Top of Page Migration Monitoring News Empidomax flycatchers, such as this Alder Flycatcher, can often only be positively identifed by careful measurements. Bander-in-charge, Ron Melcer, and Science Horizon Intern, Rheanna Fraser, local volunteers and visitors from abroad all contributed to another excellent migration monitoring season. Four more species were added to the list of birds observed in the Rocky Point checklist area: Eurasian Collared Dove (which is expanding its range throughout North America, Red-Shouldered Hawk (possibly the first BC record) and Ross's Goose (possibly the first southern Vancouver Island record.) Our first Alder Flycatchers were caught, carefully measured and banded. A rare foreign passerine recapture occured on August 15. A Yellow Warbler, originally banded last year by the Big Sur Ornithological Lab in California found its way into an RPBO net. The full season report can be found on the RPBO publications page of our website. Return to Top of Page Hummingbird Project of BC News The topic of bird bondage caused a few giggles at the WBBA meeting. Alison Moran and Ann Nightingale gave a presentation and created a poster on hummingbird restraints for the Western Bird Banding Association meeting in San Jose last August. Alison has also taken the reins for the project from retiring founder Cam Finlay. There will be a band-making/bander discussion session and a pot luck for hummingbird project volunteers on Sunday, March 7. If you are interested in participating, please contact Alison. Northern Saw-whet Owl News Asymmetric molt patterns, like this bird with a single old primary, create excitement at the banding station. In 2009, 344 Northern Saw-whet Owls and 5 Barred Owls were banded during 1455.3 net hours of operation at Rocky Point. This was considerably lower than the 636 Saw-whets banded in 2008, but was more than had been expected. Northern Saw-whet Owls are believed to have a four-year cycle, and 2009 was a "slump" year. Although the number of individuals captured was our third highest, the ratio of hatch-year to after-hatch-year birds was typical of a low season. A foreign recapture of a Northern Saw-whet banded on Bainbridge Island in 2008, and Jamie Acker's fourth recapture of a Rocky Point-banded bird (this one banded on October 5 and recaptured on Oct 18) on Bainbridge Island is solidifying this migration corridor. The 2009 owl monitoring report can be found on the RPBO publications page. Return to Top of Page MAPS News A successful MAPS season was conducted at two sites, Rocky Point and Witty's Lagoon Regional Park in 2009. The Witty's Lagoon site was new for RPBO and proved to be quite productive with 220 individuals of 29 species banded. This compared to 231 birds of 37 species at Rocky Point, although the RPBO results were below average, in part due to net closures necessitated by windy conditions. The Witty's Lagoon MAPS report can be found on the RPBO publications page. Return to Top of Page
	Rocky Point Bird Observatory c/o 954A Queens Ave Victoria, BC, V8T 1M6	Website: rpbo.org Charitable RegistrationNo: 869770123RR0001