​The Bunnies Are Turning White!
Although Ellie and Albert, the resident Great Horned Owls, have taken some of the Snowshoe Hares around the buildings, there are still several bunnies living in the spruce trees by Prentiss Road. Myrna encountered this rather tame one when leaving the site yesterday. They are in the process of turning from their summer brown pelage to their winter white. 

​DOW VIDEO PROJECT COMPLETE!
We are pleased that we have now completed our Dow Video Project. This project, which was funded by a Dow Community Grant, entailed interviews with early Prentiss team leaders, EBF board members and staff, as well as neighbours of Charlie and Winnie. It also covered Ellis Bird Farm's 35th anniversary, the celebration of recent projects, and the documentation of site changes between 2017-2020 with drone photography. We thought that a fitting conclusion to the project would be a short drone film created by Phil French. It is called EBF By Air. All footage was taken after the Purple Martins had left (soas not to frighten them) and after hours. 

Our sincere thanks to Phil French, Leo de Groot and the folks at Todayville for sharing their time and talents with us on this project. 

​Site Activities
We are getting lots of orders for bird box kits, so Claudia has been busy painting them. Thanks to the Paint Stop, Sylvan Lake, for their donation of a can of varnish, we were able to get the Purple Martin gourds looking great again. And the Bouwsema team has been out helping to keep the bird feeders topped! We are also busy getting some of Myrna's books and files organized in the library. 

​Pushing to the finish Line
As Myrna Pearman's retirement draws close, she is working hard to sort out 33 years of records and paperwork. A big job! 

​WINTER! 
Winter has arrived early at EBF! The beaver pond had a skiff of ice over it by October 17th, but the beavers have since punched through and continue retrieving logs from the feeding pile to carry across to their cache just a few metres away. They chose to build their lodge on the east side of the pond, which is close to the feeding station (and away from our walking paths!). It will be interesting to see how long they keep the water open. We will keep supplying them with poplars as long as they can access them

Here is Pres Winter's 2019 bird trail summary. We have a spot for Alberta bluebird trail records. 
https://www.ellisbirdfarm.ca/alberta-bluebird-trail-reports.html

​Bat House Update
Cory Olson of the Alberta Community Bat Program came to EBF on Sunday, October 11, to remove the temperature and humidity sensors from our bat boxes and to retrieve some gauno that we collected over the summer. The guano will be examined for neonicotinoid contamination.