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Check out Yukon's Boreal Birds Online

This is a hatch year Ovenbird. This is the second time Ovenbirds have been recorded at Albert Creek. Before that, it had not been recorded west of Cosh Creek. The bird is at the extreme northwestern extent of its range at Albert Creek.

The Albert Creek and Teslin Lake bird banding stations enjoyed another year of successful migration monitoring in 2006.

The sixth year of operation at Albert Creek, we were open for 44 days in the spring and 57 days in the fall and banded a total of 5,178 birds of sixty species. As in past years, we banded a couple of southeast specialties including Ovenbirds and Black & White Warblers while adding a Say’s Phoebe, Belted Kingfisher, Downy Woodpecker and Pine Grosbeak to our all-time list of birds banded. It was an exceptional year for Ruby-crowned Kinglets and Yellow Warblers with record numbers banded.

The Teslin station completed its second year of operation. Although the station does not operate every day, it still recorded an impressive variety of species with notable rarities such as Brewer’s Sparrow and Eastern Phoebe and high numbers of Olive-sided Flycatchers, Bohemian Waxwings and an incredible eight Belted Kingfishers.

Both stations continue to serve as a place for learning and appreciating our rich boreal forest and its avian inhabitants. Many thanks go out to the numerous students, visitors and volunteers who made this year a success.

This hatch year Brewer’s “Timberline” Sparrow is one of the first lowland records for the Yukon. The Timberline species may become split as a separate species from the Brewer’s Sparrow, pending more DNA evidence. The Timberline Sparrow’s range is very small, essentially a sliver running from Northern BC, through southwest Yukon and just into Alaska.

Banding birds provides a unique opportunity for photography – both for documentation and to capture beautiful shots. These photos are very useful for determining variation between different age groups and sexes as well as geographic variation. Most of all, our collection of digital photos offers a unique opportunity for public education. Many birdwatchers may not get the opportunity to see birds close-up like we do when we are banding them.

The new web link http://picasaweb.google.com/yukonbanding will take you to an online photo album set up to share a portion of the photos taken at the banding stations. You will find three different web albums at this time, one for Albert Creek, one for Teslin Lake and one for some of our interesting captures while feeder banding (including a really extraordinary recent catch). We won't ruin the surprise, take a look for yourself. Within the three albums you will find photos of 75+ species banded by us with only a few species missing!

We are also planning on updating this page frequently during the spring and fall migration seasons to keep people up-to-date on what we have been banding. So take a look at the web albums, add the page to your favorites and check back often!

Ted Murphy-Kelly (Albert Creek)
Ben Schonewille (Teslin Lake)