Cortes Island 2021 Birdathon
Cortes Currents
English - June 28, 2021 17:08 - 11 minutes - 26.8 MBNews cortes island discovery islands quadra food security energy indigenous nations Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Roy L Hales/ CKTZ News - Local naturalist George Sirk just completed the Cortes Island 2021 Birdathon.
>>> Only possible during a two month period
“We only get about two months of great singing here,” he explained.
“When you hear a bird singing, that means it is on its territory, whether it is an acre, five acres or twenty acres of land. When we listen to our Robins or beautiful Swainson Thrushes, they are on territory. The males are usually the ones that sing. Females are either incubating, or the birds will share incubation. It depends on the species, but they will live on that one acre until they have raised their young and they have fledged.”
Sirk describes his travels around the island as a breeding bird census. For example, the Olive-sided Flycatcher that he hears will remain on territory until its young fledge.
“You get an idea where everything is nesting: singing birds do not wander around the island …” he explained.
The singing starts petering out in July and is really scarce by August.
“The birds are still here. The babies are fattening up. They’re fledged and flying around, but they are quiet,” said Sirk.
This makes taking a bird census much more difficult, because you would have to see the birds.
They are also no longer on territory.
Lots more in the podcast
Photo credit: Breakfast for a Robin by Eric Sonstroem via Flickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 License)