Fort Simpson (July 28/06) - It's a dangerous world out there for song birds.

A team of researchers have been discovering just how dangerous it is while collecting data on how corridors and forest edges affect nesting success.

Jeff Ball, left, watches while Amy Darling checks a trap for animals. The two have been leading field studies on song birds and small mammals in the Fort Simpson area since May. - Roxanna Thompson/NNSL photo

This is the second year of the study led by Jeff Ball, a PhD student at the University of Alberta.

Ball and a team of researchers arrived on the first ferry May 18 and had their boat in the water the next day. They are studying six plots across the river that are spread between Martin Island to south of the ferry crossing.

Using personal observation and video cameras, they have been watching nests for the number of eggs and chicks produced.

Ball said he hopes to determine whether birds at the edge of the forest display different behaviours such as producing fewer young or feeding them differently.

This year, the team found 205 nests compared to 268 last year. The primary species are Swainson's thrush and Tennessee warblers, although there are over 30 species in the area, Ball said.

Already he has seen a few changes. Last year, there were lots of yellow-rumped warblers but this year there are hardly any, Ball said.

There are also more hermit thrush but fewer Swainson's thrush.

Red squirrel numbers have also climbed which is important to Ball's research because they are the primary nest predators. Last year, 40 per cent of the nests failed. Of those caught on video, 50 per cent were predated by red squirrels.

Other predators included sharp-shinned hawks, chipmunks, red-backed voles and northern flying squirrels.

Preliminary findings have shown that nesting success is not affected by the nest's proximity to a forest edge such as a pipeline, Ball said.

Ball will continue watching until mid-August. He will then spend the winter reviewing the thousands of hours of video gathered from the 20 video cameras."It's been a pretty good year," Ball said.

Birds aren't the only creatures that have been under surveillance.

Sharing the same base in the Fort Simpson campgrounds, Amy Darling, a Master's student, has been studying how small mammals respond to corridors.

A pipeline corridor is just like a meadow running through the forest, Darling said. She has been primarily studying mice, red-backed voles and meadow voles.

True to their name, meadow voles live primarily in the corridors while red-backed voles live mostly in the forest.

To catch the animals, Darling uses small metal live traps she baits with peanut butter and a piece of carrot. Darling and her assistants carefully empty each trap into a plastic bucket. Each animal is weighed and sexed and has a tag or a notch put in their ear.

Chipmunks are one of the trickier animals because they're so light you're not always sure if one is in the trap. If you empty a chipmunk into a bucket, they can jump right out, Darling said.

Squirrels also sometimes jam themselves into the small traps to get to the peanut butter inside.

This year, Darling has found an more small mammals, but fewer meadow voles.