Subject: RPBO update
Date: Sep 21 16:14:03 2002
From: David Allinson - goshawk at telus.net


Hi folks,
Well things have definitely picked up at station over last week. We finally had a big banding day with 103 banded on Wednesday 18th and we are now poised to go over 2000 birds by Sunday (50 birds banded today) -- kinglet numbers have picked up! We banded our 7th Sharp-shinned Hawk of season with a large female yesterday (record high -- we normally band 2-3/birds/year). Our new Northern Saw-whet Owl project had a great night last night with 11 (eleven!) saw-whets banded (many thanks to Paul Levesque for getting this project started)!! This morning, the crew watched a Great Horned Owl attacking a Barred Owl for about 30 minutes, but the Barred may have survived the attack as it flew away in spite of being dragged and stood on by the Great Horned during this time! This may have represented more aggression than predation by a territorial Great Horned?

Other highlights today (among 80 species tallied):
1 Lewis's Woodpecker - first local and recent record in ~15-20 years (an extirpated, former breeder at RPBO);
1 Nashville Warbler (seen near banding hut) - our 7th record
1 Yellow-headed Blackbird - adult male
2 Broad-winged Hawk (adult and immature)
3 Sandhill Crane - flew in from north, but they did not look back as they then migrated over Juan de Fuca Strait!
475+ Turkey Vulture - nice spectacle (a "boil" rather than a kettle!)
2 American Kestrel
1 Merlin
10 Red-tailed Hawk
15 Sharp-shinned Hawk
3 Cooper's Hawk
2 Northern Harrier
1 Osprey
1 Northern Shoveler - an uncommon bird for us as we lack suitable habitat
53 Vaux's Swift
180 Band-tailed Pigeon
4 Violet-green Swallow
1 Virginia Rail

Site year list is now at 170 species.


David Allinson
President, Rocky Point Bird Observatory
572 Atkins Avenue
Victoria, BC
V9B 3A3
Ph. (250)391-1786

Web site: www.islandnet.com/~rpbo
277 species and counting!
Look for a bargraph checklist coming soon.

"Not everything that can be counted counts,
and not everything that counts can be counted."
Albert Einstein