The Monkeys Return

View of typical Churchill scenery.

Our past week or so has been basically filled with more nest searching. However, we've also now begun to band birds. Banding a godwit involves placing a mist net on top of their nest, then flushing them up into it. They get tangled, but then we immediately extract them. Once in hand, each bird gets a metal band with identification number, a color band, and a flag with a unique alpha code.

Walking in on a godwit nest with a mist net.

There are several reasons that catching the birds are important. First, the flags allow us to identify the individual birds and thereby know who's visiting what areas. Second, it allows us to collect data on their weight, wing and bill length, etc, etc. Third, and most excitingly, several godwits at the fen have data loggers attached to their flags. These devices record sunrise and sunset times, and allow us to determine exactly where the bird migrated to over the past year.

Dear Mr. JJ, thank you for giving us your data logger.

Banding and nest searching keep us busy for the most part, but we also take time to enjoy the scenery and other birds. Basically......Churchill is awesome.

Looking out over the Hudson Bay.

American Golden-Plover on nest.