Hi Birders and Banders,

I've just uploaded the first blog of the year covering set up in March and our first month of spring migration monitoring in April!

An extremely busy period with LOTS of birds and visitors to the Colony Farm banding station and tremendous diversity with first banding records for AMERICAN TREE SPARROW, CASSIN'S VIREO and two NASHVILLE WARBLERS, DUSKY FLYCATCHER AND HOUSE WREN among the many other species banded this month.

We have received a number of inquiries from birders regarding help with early season Empid identification, specifically separating Hammond's from Dusky Flycatchers and we have included a short photo essay on the two species which we hope will help!

For photos and information on all of this month's activity at VARC please click here:

http://birdvancouver.com/blog_april12.html

Happy spring birding and banding!

Derek

Derek Matthews
Vancouver Avian Research Centre
Vancouver, BC, Canada
www.birdvancouver.com