greetings yesterday we had about terra students and family out to the marsh as well as 3 past terra students shayne and tyler jackson as well as steph laurin that were out to see if we could catch the first redwinged blackbirds of the season. We were a bit suprised to see how few redpolls were around after how busy we were last weekend. After arriving the redwings seemed to avoid the feeders but finally a three landed and were caught right away one got out of the nets but the remainig two both had bands one was originally banded 4 years ago and the other 2 years ago. i am always excited to get retraps. Shortly after cacthing the redwings we had a very ggo net check with about 30 birds in the net then the redpoll numbers dropped dramatically. We were trying to stay in the shed to keep things quiet for the redwings whcih seemed very skittish whne one of the parents said there is a big bird chasing a small bird with that we ran out to the nets in time to see a shrike fly off we thoguth we missed our chance buit three monutes later shayne jackson and Zack Martel skillfully and without loss of any fingers brought the beautiful shrike to show the parents and kids. This only the 7th shrike we have banded at the marsh and we have only caught 2 shrikes in one season once before in 2000 a year we banded 444 redpolls. We are hoping to be at the marsh next saturday again having said that walking conditions at the marsh are very hazardous rerquiring boots patience and a fair bit of determination. When you are not sinking to your hips you are sliding on ice or both at the same time. Please take that into consideration if you are going to join us. We have high hopes for the return of tree and song sparrow for next weekend and we are hoping to be able to start using the j-trap which will aid us in our annual goal of banding 100 redwinged balckbirds. Please join us for a day of banding at the marsh weather permitting. Thanks to all of the terra students whose net skills are now becoming legend. Without their help our research would not be possible.