04/19/2022
Here is our second bird update
Overall the first half of April was very cold. There were a few warmer days right at the beginning but for the past week or so especially the night temps have been way below seasonal reaching down to -24 degrees on some mornings along my bird count routes.
The cold weather has meant very modest advances in spring migration. Trumpeter Swans arrived as expected but the distribution of them has been unusual. Normally the highest numbers are seen at Swan Haven (M'Clintock Bay) but now the cold nights have refrozen most of their most desired feeding spots and a large portion of them have been feeding at faster moving waters, especially in Tagish and along Yukon River just downstream from Swan Haven. Tagish had a whopping record count of 2800 on the 14th, just 300 less than the all time record at Swan Haven in 2019. After the coldest nights most, 90+%, of the swans have spent their mornings simply sleeping on ice and conserving energy. Among the many swans a Whooper Swan, a stray from Asia, was seen at Swan Haven on the 7th and 8th.
Other birds present in good numbers have been Common Goldeneye (hundreds at some open water sites) and Northern Shrike which have featured prominently along our highways. Both Snow Buntings and Golden Eagles passed through already with very small numbers detected.
The weather is forecasted to improve this week with southerly winds and higher temperatures both at day and night, and hopefully with that we'll see more migrants arriving. Right now there is only a smattering of other waterfowl or raptor sightings but many Mountain Bluebirds seen on Monday are surely a sign of more to come!
