THUNDER BAY – The McKellar Island Bird Observatory finished off their 2021 fall migration season on October 30.
“What we do is, we capture birds in nets to get a sample of the populations flying through, spring and fall," said John Woodcock. "It’s kind of like the pollsters, they take 1,000 people and ask them who they're going to vote for and project what the results are going to be."
“You can do that by capturing the birds that migrate through here, none of the birds are hurt or harmed, they’re just tagged with a little aluminum ring, that’s what we do here.”
The McKellar Island Bird Observatory catches migratory birds in an array of nets that are set up around the land available to them on Mckellar Island.
The nets are checked every 30 minutes and all birds that are caught are banded after their measurements have been taken and then released so that they can continue on their migration.
McKellar Island Bird Observatory is a contributing member of the Canadian Migration Monitoring Network working in collaboration with Bird Studies Canada.
The main goals of the Bird Banding Program at the McKellar Island Bird Observatory are:
- To collect data suitable for trend analysis with the aim of documenting changes in populations of small landbirds that migrate through northwestern Ontario, as a contribution to the Canadian Migration Monitoring Network
- To provide volunteers with opportunities to learn new skills
- To engage in public outreach through demonstrations and on-site visits
People who venture out to the McKellar Island Bird Observatory can expect friendly conversation as well as some very fascinating information from John Woodcock and his co-founder and wife, Maureen Woodcock.
“What you can look forward to is our smiling faces in greeting you, and what is really unique about this place is: we are an educational facility, what we’re wanting to promote is having young people, have these birds in their hand and getting excited about the science, and that tio me is the most important thing,” said Maureen Woodcock,
Over the season, The McKellar Island Bird Observatory also held tours for students from the university, the college and local high schools, but, unfortunately weren’t able to offer tours to elementary school students as they could not be vaccinated, they hope to be able to include them next year as COVID restrictions continue to decrease.
For more information about the Observatory, visit their Facebook page, or email them at mckellar@hotmail.ca
