Probably it was a combination of the big storm on the eastern seaboard and the SE winds we were experiencing today which swept the bird in from afar, but I certainly wasn’t prepared for this surprising bird. Hanging out on the rocks beside the river, just recently free of ice, was a big, long-legged black bird. As you can imagine, I did a double take when I realized that it had to be an Open-billed Stork!!! How it got here from sub-Saharan Africa is beyond me….but there it was. Our attempts to capture it proved futile as it eluded us no matter what ruse we tried. After giving us great views for 15 minutes, it flew up and away toward the SE….heading home.
The rest of the day proved to be almost as exciting…for the start of the Spring banding season. There were a lot of Dark-eyed Juncos around, including 19 retraps – which must represent the bulk of our resident wintering flock. Most of them had been banded this past Fall but several had been banded in previous years. Good to see that so many had survived this difficult Winter. I’m sure our always-full feeders played a hand in this.
We banded two interesting birds: a male Golden-crowned Kinglet and a White-throated Sparrow. You might be tempted into thinking that these are early migrants but, given that their fat scores were low, I would suggest that they are birds that spent the Winter in the area. The surge of migrants is yet to come.
However, waterfowl were moving…in large numbers. We counted over 500 Tundra Swans (all headed West) and 9 species of ducks, including Northern Pintails, Blue-winged Teal, American Wigeon and Lesser Scaup (we almost never see this species – probably due to the almost complete ice cover on Lake Erie). We also saw a Common Loon. This is VERY early for this species.
For the day, we banded 17 and retrapped 30 (as well as the plethora of juncos we had a Hairy Woodpecker that was 5 years old).
Banded 17:
1 Mourning Dove
1 Golden-crowned Kinglet
2 American Robins
3 Song Sparrows
1 White-throated Sparrow
9 Dark-eyed Juncos
ET’s: 39 spp.
Rick