Pat Burri’s Posting for May 11th to May 13th
Salue zaeme! (Hello in Swiss German)
There comes the call over the radio! ‘Baguette! There is a Black backed Woodpecker just here!’ Everybody grabs the binoculars and of course the camera and is going towards the place where the call came from. Volunteer Martin had just spotted the Black backed Woodpecker. Unfortunately it was gone until we were there but he got a really nice picture of it. However, hopes are up that we can spot it again and we all look out for the Woodpecker during the rest of the day. This is it what makes volunteering at BPBO so exciting. You never know what happens next! I’m not going to tell you why you should volunteer yourself. Martin already told everything in his blog and I completely agree! So I just can tell you, find it out yourself!
The first time I was here in Canada to do some volunteering was seven years ago. And now somehow I keep coming back to learn and see more! You get to see different fantastic places and meet interesting people. Ok, I admit it’s not always easy to get up this early but as soon as you are out there you keep forgetting that you may be tired. Just let’s see what happened the last couple of days.
11th May
We banded 57 birds of 18 species and 49 species were spotted on census including 14 White Winged Scoters. Among the banded birds were a beautiful Golden-winged Warbler and the first Common Yellowthroat of the season.
12th May
Weather could be nicer but we banded 40 birds of 16 species, including a Least Flycatcher, 3 Lincoln’s Sparrow and an American Robin (may be unspectacular for some but for me it was the first American Robin I banded). 45 species were seen on census including the already mentioned Black backed Woodpecker!
13th May
It was quite a slow day. We banded 22 birds of 14 species. However numbers on census were the same again – 45 species including a Northern Pintail and the Black backed Woodpecker was seen again.
But not only the birding and banding makes it worth to come out here, the experience exchange with other volunteers from all over the world makes it unforgettable.
And yeah not to forget, the food is international and very delicious!
So I can definitively say, it was worth it to come over here from Switzerland and I’m looking forward to the next (hopefully exciting) two weeks.
And as we say in Switzerland –
‘ond tschuess bis gli!!’
Patricia