Frontenac Bird Studies in 2011

Year three is underway….

Despite lingering winter-like conditions our third season officially kicked off with an early Louisiana Waterthrush belting out its song from a creek near Canoe Lake Road on April 19, 2011 – a great start! Our first two years of Frontenac Bird Studies were very productive and we’re excited to begin our 3rd, which is shaping up to be our busiest field season so far.

The blueprints for 2011

In 2010 we launched inventories of two rare breeding warbler species within our core study area. We examined over twenty potential breeding sites for Louisiana Waterthrush last season, which produced several locations occupied by singing males, two previously unknown breeding sites and also a nest with four eggs in Frontenac Provincial Park. The results from 2010 have raised many more questions that compel us to investigate this species on an annual basis. This year we will increase our coverage by visiting previously unexplored habitat and also revisit occupied sites to bolster our data on productivity and fidelity. Perhaps the most exciting result of 2010 was our inventory of Prairie Warblers in the rock barrens of Frontenac Provincial Park. We have received word that the Frontenac colony is the largest away from the Georgian Bay core population. In 2011 we will be undertaking a detailed study of the Prairie Warblers in the park, which will involve extensive nest searching and colour banding to examine demography, ecology and stability of the population. In addition to these projects we will be operating our network of Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship (MAPS) stations for a third consecutive year – Rock Ridge (RRID), Maplewood Bog (MABO) and Blue Lakes (BLAK). Lastly, as time permits we will be conducting area searches for Species at Risk and habitats that haven’t been adequately covered by our operations to date. In particular we will be looking for Red-headed Woodpecker (Threatened), Short-eared Owl (Threatened) and Golden-winged Warbler (Threatened) in Frontenac Provincial Park. It’s going to be a busy season for sure!

Frontenac Biothon 2011

Frontenac Bird Studies is made possible through the support of our many volunteers, sponsors and private donors. In July 2010 we held our first annual fundraiser, the Frontenac Biothon, which successfully raised funds for our work and also contributed to science and conservation at the same time. Over 400 species were documented and a pair of Red-headed Woodpeckers were discovered, a rapidly declining species and only the second breeding record for the park. This year our biothon team will be sifting through the flora and fauna of Frontenac Provincial Park for 24 hours on June 11-12.

Thanks to everyone who supported the biothon in 2010! We hope you will consider sponsoring one of our biothon participants this year. Please visit our biothon page for more information or to make a donation.