Wednesday, May 27, 2009

To Last Mountain Bird Observatory

This spring and last fall I have been helping band songbirds at the Last Mountain Bird Observatory (LMBO) which is situated at the north end of Last Mountain Lake between Govan and Nokomis, Saskatchewan.

LMBO is a fantastic little banding station nestled in the Last Mountain Regional Park that focuses on monitoring migrating songbirds like warblers, sparrows and flycatchers. LMBO has been in operation for 20 years now, gathering valuable information on migrating songbird population trends.

Kristen and I were up at LMBO the past two weekends and will be there again this weekend. Interestling spring banding at LMBO is fairly quiet compared to fall banding. Spring is unique though because we catch many of the warblers and other species in their bright, bold breeding plumage, which is very cool to see! Unfortunately, overall daily captures are significantly lower then in the fall. So we don't catch many birds but they are pretty when we do!

If you have an opportunity to visit LMBO I would strongly encourage it. Nature Saskatchewan currently manages LMBO and you can get more information from their website. I am also one of two editors of the Black-and-white Warbler Newsletter which is a publication that highlights what is being caught at LMBO and in general what is going on. There is information there regarding dates that banding is happening and lots more.

Here are a few birds we have captured the last few days I was out.


Brown-headed Cowbird - Male


Tree Swallow


Yellow Warbler - Male


Gray Catbird


Common Yellowthroat - Male

No comments: