Our Canadian Connection

This fall we joined Jim Smith and his team to band birds in Venezuela. Jim, director of Rock Point Bird Banding Station, Ontario (Canada), has sent us some bands and mist-nets to use during the field days of our projects, when we capture birds from North America. At Rock Point, they are banding birds when they are migrating south (September-October) and when they return north to breed (April-May). This collaboration has been made ​​possible because the Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) has allowed Jim send some bands to us. Data collected will be sent to the CWS.

Here we show some migratory birds, observed or captured last October at Paraguaná Peninsula (northwestern Venezuela):

                                        Northern Waterthrush (Parkesia noveboracensis)

Ruddy Turnstones (Arenaria interpres). Bird on the left

wears a lime green leg flag. This means that was tagged

in the United States. After reading the leg flag code, we

know that was tagged in May 2011 at Delaware coast, United States.

Blackpoll Warbler (Setophaga striata)

Blackpoll Warbler (Setophaga striata)

Protonothary Warbler (Protonotaria citrea)

Also we captured other resident birds, including flycatchers (Inezia tenuirostris, Myiarchus tyrannulus and Sublegatus arenarum), Snowy Egret (Egretta thula), and House Sparrow (Passer domesticus). You can see some pictures in our Facebook album: Paraguaná (Falcón, Venezuela)

These days in Paraguaná were accomplished with the participation and collaboration of J.C. Fernández-Ordóñez, Alberto Porta, Angélica M. León, Maritza Vargas, Antonio Claret Garcés (La Prueba farm) and Uvencio "Venchu​​" (El Vínculo) and his family.