The Mackenzie Nature Observatory, with funding support from the FWCP, has been collecting long-term data about birds for more than two decades. While the data is vital to understanding specie abundance, it is often the individual bird stories that get the attention of volunteer bird banders. Bird stories like this: last year the Mackenzie Nature Observatory received a report that one of its banded birds had been found elsewhere. Volunteers got word that a banded sparrow that took flight near Mackenzie BC had been  recaptured – alive – 4,229 kilometres away in southern Mexico! Check out this flight path!

“This was extremely exciting news to receive because it was our very first encounter reported from outside the United States or Canada,” says Vi Lambie, the society’s Banding Station Coordinator. “Most encounter reports we receive usually concern birds found deceased after flying into windows or hit by traffic, but this was a live recapture from a bird bander in Mexico, so it made it all the more rewarding.”

Learn more about our long-term support of the Mackenzie Nature Observatory and the important bird data being collected.