Anna's Hummingbird Banded at Grouse Mountain

Hello everyone! We had a very exciting hummingbird monitoring session yesterday. We banded 12 new hummingbirds, including our very first Anna's Hummingbird and our very first recapture of a bird not banded here on Grouse Mountain.

Anna's Hummingbirds are found in the Vancouver area, but are normally located at lower elevations near the coast.

The recaptured Rufous Hummingbird was banded four years ago at the base of nearby Fromme Mountain. She has survived all these years, and multiple visits to Mexico for the winter and is now back on Grouse Mountain and when we examined her she had a nearly fully developed egg in her abdomen. It's exciting to see she chose here to breed!

The Grouse Mountain Refuge for Endangered Wildlife participates in the North American Hummingbird Monitoring Network and is the only mountaintop site in BC. The Hummingbird Monitoring Network is monitoring hummingbird populations across western North America and investigating the apparent decline of these magnificent birds. We band every two weeks whenever hummingbirds are present, and data on the age, measurements and health of the birds is collected and compared with other stations.

For more information please see: http://www.hummonnet.org/

Grinder and Coola Emerge

Grinder and Coola have come out of their 2008/2009 hibernation period! They awoke in April and were recently seen emerging into their hibernation habitat for a long wrestling and play session.

Grizzly bears hibernate anywhere from one month to five months in the wild. Here on Grouse Mountain Grinder and Coola usually hibernate for three or four months, depending on the season.

For the next couple of weeks you can visit Grinder and Coola in their hibernation area until they have access to their full five acre habitat. We are currrently in the process of excavating all of the snow from their habitats and hope to have them ready as soon as possible!

Grinder and Coola Prepare for Winter

Grinder and Coola have begun to prepare for their 8th winter hibernation. As the days grow shorter and the temperatures fall lower, the bears are getting more sluggish and sleepy. Both bears have begun to sleep 14-16 hours a day and are spending their remaining hours building their den and making sure things are just right with their hibernation bed.

At the refuge we are also preparing for hibernation and are making sure our bear cameras are in working order. Everything is running well and posted below are a series of videos showing Grinder and Coola's preparations.

Staff have thrown in extra Pacific Silver-fir (Amabalis) branches for bedding material; the bears have shown a preference for this type of branch since the needles are dense and flat on the branch. The first video shows the bears pulling the branches in through the main door of their hibernation hotel:

After pulling the branches in, Grinder arranges them into their den chamber - he has to get each piece in the right spot!

Finally, Grinder inspects his handi-work:

All of this leads to a good nights sleep as we can see in this clip from 2 in the morning the following night!

The bears will continue these preparations over the next few days and will eat less and less food as the snow starts to fall. After our first good snow fall the boys will enter the den for the winter and officially be in hibernation.