Progress in Cats and Birds Research!
Notes from the field | July 2020
Vancouver Cat Count
By Jaylen Bastos, Vancouver Cat Count Researcher
With all 34 cameras officially installed, we have finally completed phase 1 of the project! This coming week I will have an opportunity to check on the deployed cameras and start processing the first sets of photos.
I was weaving and bobbing, ducking and diving to get the cameras in just the right places but also out of reach of curious humans.
It has only been six days, but it seems like each camera is taking upwards of 1600 photos a week! In this short time, my cameras have already detected a skunk, raccoon, rodents and cats! Here are just a few shots of outdoor cats from one of my locations.
Outdoor cats photographed by one of Jaylen’s trail cameras in Vancouver.
Greater Vancouver Urban Landbird Count
A day in the life of your friendly neighbourhood field ornithologist
By Harold Eyster, Greater Vancouver Urban Landbird Count Researcher
I am up at 4 am, just as the darkness outside is beginning to fade. The mountains on the North Shore are starting to resolve themselves. But dawn, and my energy, are still a long way off. I strap on my bicycle helmet and begin biking east, towards the nascent sun.
You’ve likely noticed that birds sing the most around sunrise. Ornithologists have noticed this too, and that’s why bird surveys are usually done within four hours of sunrise. So field research that might normally be done throughout the day has to be squeezed into four short hours.
I quicken my pace. If I don’t get to my first survey point by sunrise, I won’t be able to survey all 20 of the locations I have planned for today before that four-hour cutoff time. And I still have a long way to go — it’s 16k from my apartment to my first point in northern Burnaby. But this is a beautiful time to be out biking.
No cars or other traffic is on the road, American Robins, Black-capped Chickadees, and White-crowned sparrows are already singing today’s opening overture. And it’s all set against the constantly-shifting colours of the big-screen TV that is the eastern sky.
I crest a hill on the Adanac bikeway and get a brilliant view. But no time to dawdle. I race on and am soon at an assuming crossroads that represents my first survey location of the day.
5:16 AM — only missed sunrise by a minute. I take out my clipboard, sling on my binoculars, uncap my pen, and look around me. The survey has begun.
Harold’s field sketch of the Spotted Towhee.
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