It was an odd day, starting off cold and foggy. You never got the sense that there was much going on, that birds were on the move. Even the goldfinches seemed few and far between. But there were some interesting finds: the most notable being the 4 species of warblers that we encountered: Pine Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warblers (these 2 have been around most of the week) but then a very early Yellow Warbler (a full week ahead of the 1st one last year), and a brilliant Western Palm Warbler (which we banded). And on census, Debbie and Janet got 42 species which helped drive our overall number of species encountered up to a season high 55. The other highlight was a Sandhill Crane (at least one – we just heard it/them).
Banded 29:
1 Tree Swallow
1 Golden-crowned Kinglet
1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet
3 American Robins
3 Yellow-rumped Warblers
1 Western Palm Warbler
4 Chipping Sparrows
1 Swamp Sparrow
2 White-throated Sparrows
1 Dark-eyed Junco
3 Red-winged Blackbirds
1 Common Grackle
2 Brown-headed Cowbirds
4 American Goldfinches
1 House Sparrow (which Carol took to release at LaFortune Park)
ET’s: 55 spp.
Photo Gallery:
Fire, burn; and caldron, bubble.” Preparing the bird seed mixture. -N. Furber
Rick
Fern Hill School, Burlington:
We had a foggy start to our morning, with heavy clouds continuing throughout the day. We also had a bit of rain in the early afternoon which made for an exciting trip down to Fern Hill’s new Rain Garden. I’m pleased to see that the native plants that went in last fall seem to have survived the winter and the leaves are starting to pop!
We had an exciting start to the day: our first captured Ruby Crowned Kinglet of the Spring! I’m always amazed by how fragile this small bird seems in the hand, but of course it must be one fierce survivor to complete it’s long migration. I was pleased to see that the Young Ornithologists identified it as male based on it’s funky red “mohawk”. Early in the AM Janice also heard our First Brown Thrasher of the year as we opened nets. Right off the bat we caught two Blue Jays, one of them was a recap from 2016 originally banded here May 10th making it at least three years old!
It seemed like there were Yellow-Shafted Flickers calling back and forth all day long-Janice and I joked that they were so loud they were interfering with our census count! We had 5 on census but 8 total throughout the day.
Another highlight for me was the recapture of a female Downy Woodpecker originally banded October 21st 2015. A year ago on April 20th we recaptured it an noticed that it is smelled strongly of gasoline. We caught it again April 28th 2016 and tried our best to clean it because we noticed it was losing body feathers where there was gas, hoping for the best. We’ve since caught her four more times (including today) and she is looking good! What a success story, because she is banded we have been able to monitor her recovery!
Today we banded 8:
1 Blue Jay
1 Black Capped Chickadee
2 Ruby Crowned Kinglets
1 Chipping Sparrow
2 Field Sparrows
1 Brown Headed Cowbird
Katherine