Spring birding festival

Hundreds of visitors drawn to bird migration hotspot

The trails at the Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory (PEPtBO) in the eastern end of the County are alive with birdsong at this time of the year. From the melodious sound of the Baltimore oriole to the whistle of a magnolia warbler to the raucous cry of a blue jay, the air is filled with sound. This is the height of the spring bird migration, and hundreds of species touch down on this little spit of land to feed and rest before continuing on their northward journey to their summer nesting grounds. With the trees not yet fully in leaf, this is an ideal time to observe these avian migrants, and PEPtBO’s Spring Birding Festival provides guided tours by expert birders to give visitors the best experience possible. “For 10 days in May we have the Spring Birding Festival to bring attention to the fact the birds are migrating through Prince Edward County and to give people the opportunity to take a walk and see the birds and have them identified by experts,” says Cheryl Anderson. In particular, last Saturday was World Migratory Bird Day and naturalist Terry Sprague led a walk that focused on swallows and the effort to create new habitat for barn swallows, a species that is undergoing a decline in population.

Volunteer Lisa Martell holds a cedar waxwing that she retrieved from one of the nets.

The bird observatory also plays a crucial role in monitoring the health and variety of species with its bird banding program, which provides data to the Canadian Wildlife Service. This activity started as a pilot project initiated in 1995 by Brian Joyce and Eric Machell, and has since become a leading site for studies in bird migration. A series of nets are used to capture birds, which are examined and tagged with a numbered metal band around one leg before being released. Should the bird be recaptured elsewhere, its unique number can be used to access its migration history. Being captured in the nets is not harmful to the birds, and volunteers are trained to gently and carefully remove them. “If you get the feet first, then they just pop out like taking off a sweater,” says Erin Feddema, who is in her third season of volunteering. She lives in Napanee and leaves home at 4:30 a.m. to be at the observatory for the start of the morning shift at 5:30.

The actual bird banding is done under the supervision of a licensed bander, and volunteer banders have come from as far afield as Australia and Germany, such is the reputation of PEPtBO. Volunteers check the nets at 15- minute intervals to ensure that the birds are not overly stressed by being left too long. Lisa Martell is a certified wildlife rehabilitator and a first-time volunteer this year, with last Saturday being just her second shift, but she had no trouble extricating the birds from the nets. “It’s been quite a learning curve, but fun nonetheless,” she says. “I’m studying to be a fish and wildlife technician, so this is really going to help me in my second year when I have an ornithology course.” Typically, over 200 birds of dozens of species are collected and banded each day. All the information gathered is entered into a central database and is made available to researchers.

The birding festival continues to May 21, with guided walks during the holiday weekend. Visit peptbo.ca for more information.