While our main objective up here in Napanee is to find shrikes, we are also always keeping an eye out for other species of animals in the area. While out surveying the other day, we saw our first snake of the season. It was a small garter snake and it looked like it was enjoying [...]

Greetings from the Napanee shrike team! Well we are finally in the field after spending a few weeks working out of the WPC head office in Guelph. After reading countless reports and protocols and looking at more maps than we would care to think about, we are happy to finally be able to update you [...]

Twenty-two captive bred shrikes have been released in the Napanee area to date! Survivorship has been good so far, with >90% of birds being accounted for right up to the first week of August.  As summer progresses and the goldenrod fades, we expect to see fewer and fewer juveniles as they succumb to the urge [...]

 Yes, they are finally here! The first of the captive-reared young shrikes arrived in Napanee on July 1st.  And, they were released on July 15th… Young shrikes come to us when they are about  37 to 46 days of age – in other words, 3 to 5 weeks after they fledge. Shrikes spend the first [...]

The ‘magic’ number of 2.1 stood out for me as I listened to a CBC broadcast about population growth in Canada while travelling from Carden to Napanee recently. Apparently, this is the average number of children per woman required to hold the human population constant. It does vary due to mortality rates and sex ratio [...]

Hello from the Napanee Shrike Team! Over the last few weeks of May, the pairs of shrikes in Napanee have started producing the next generation of shrikes for Ontario.  All the nests had six eggs, which is slightly above average for the species, and two of the three nests have hatched. The young that the [...]

Good day WPC blog followers!   Greetings from the Napanee Shrike Team.  The Napanee area shrikes are back and courtship is underway.  Female shrikes have been busy performing begging calls this week, and the males have been responding with tireless courtship feeding.  Tips from bird enthusiasts and landowners have kept us busy on the road, [...]