Another day with a scheduling mix-up (probably just in Jeff’s planner) that resulted in two banders present at the park (Jeff and Brian). This is always a nice thing, though, as it makes the day less hectic and more enjoyable. A decent day weather-wise, mostly sunny without a whole lot of wind. That doesn’t always equal good banding, but the banding numbers were at least half decent. If nothing else, today’s banding total puts us over the previous April record for most birds banded. We’re now over 700 birds banded in April, easily clearing the old record of 685 from 2007 with still a day to go.

We had a handful of new species around today, including:
4 Northern Rough-winged Swallows foraging over the river, and one over the parking lot
1 Spotted Sandpiper flying upriver
1 Warbling Vireo in the willow by the Coach House
1 ASY male Orchard Oriole near the graveyard
1 Retrapped Blue-winged Warbler. This one was banded last year.

Also, 21 Common Loons flew over today, all heading due north (not following the river). The first one passed around 0630 DST.

Banded: 40
Blue-Grey Gnatcatcher 1
Ruby-Crowned Kinglet 2
American Goldfinch 8
Chipping Sparrow 4
Pine Siskin 3
Field Sparrow 3
House Wren 1
Yellow Warbler 1
Slate-Coloured Junco 1
Swamp Sparrow 6
White-Throated Sparrow 5
Brown-Headed Cowbird 1
Red-Winged Blackbird 3
Mourning Dove 1

Retrapped: 23
Blue-Winged Warbler 1
American Goldfinch 2
House Wren 1
Pine Siskin 1
Slate-Coloured Junco 1
Chipping Sparrow 6
Swamp Sparrow 1
Tree Swallow 2
White-Throated Sparrow 3
Song Sparrow 3
Grey Catbird 1
Red-Winged Blackbird 1

I don’t have the estimated total number of species for the day, but it must have been at least 50 or so.

Jeff