Visit hundreds of birds

It's migration season, and the Vaseux Lake Bird Observatory is busy tracking the progress of around 150 different species of songbirds that make their way through the area every year. 

"It's our 18th year that we've been doing this at this location, so we have a really long-term data set of of the birds as they've been migrating through," said Matthias Bieber, who is in charge of banding the birds, a painless process which attaches a lightweight piece of metal with a serial number to a bird's leg. 

From Aug. 1 to mid-October, volunteers and scientists with the observatory are up at the crack of dawn to catch birds in the 14 humane nets set up around the banding station at the north end of Vaseux Lake. 

They collect the birds out of the soft netting, place them in safe, dark cloth bags, where they are calm, and take them back to the trailer for banding. 

"We record a bunch of different information on the birds," Bieber said, including weight, body fat, species and sex. The information is used as part of a network of 25 stations like this one across Canada. 

"We collect data over a long-term period, and it all goes to a central database. Then Bird Studies Canada, they analyze this data and develop population trends over time, so they can determine if populations are increasing or decreasing, just what's happening on a large scale."

Unfortunately, areas like Vaseux Lake, which are a hub for these migratory birds, are becoming increasingly scarce.

"This kind of habitat is really uncommon in the Okanagan, there's not much left, it's very fragmented," Bieber said. Another hurdle is city lights.  

"So most birds migrate overnight, and they're attracted to lights, especially those in cities. They can act as kind of a trap for migrating birds."

Bieber said windows, cars and house cats in urban neighbourhoods spell doom for many migrating birds. People can cut down on their personal impact by nixing unnecessary indoor and outdoor lights after nightfall. 

The public can learn more about what the observatory does this Sunday, Sept. 23 starting at 9 a.m. The organization's annual open house will last all morning, with opportunities to learn through guided tours, watch birds getting banded and released and donate. 

To learn more about the observatory, click here.