April is not known as a busy month for us, especially early April. We normally get a moderate but steady flow of short-distance migrants moving through the site heading further north to breed (e.g., American Tree Sparrows) or into the site if they’re local breeders (e.g., Song Sparrows). But this nasty weather has caused something of a log jam: birds that should be going north are staying put until there’s a break in the weather but new birds are piling in from further south.
Look at our Tree Sparrow numbers: we banded 13 but retrapped 21 for a total of 34 – and we saw a number besides this. Some of the retraps were birds that have spent the winter and are trying to put on some fat before heading on but some must have represented an influx of birds on the move that have been bottled up as we’ve only seen them in the past 4 days. Same with juncos: we banded 9 today but retrapped 12….and saw another 30 or so. On the 1st we banded a flock of 10 Golden-crowned Kinglets. This morning we retrapped 7 of them. Not only had they stayed in the immediate Ruthven area but they had stayed together – they were caught at about the same time in nets that were only 15 metres apart.
We did have some “new” birds for the season as well: Winter Wren, Brown Creeper, and Purple Finch.
Volunteer Michelle Martin wanted to learn to scribe and certainly hit the right day: we handled 127 birds: 57 banded and 70 retraps. That’s a lot of learning for one day!
Banded 57:
2 Mourning Doves
1 Black-capped Chickadee
1 Brown Creeper
1 Golden-crowned Kinglet
1 American Robin
13 American Tree Sparrows
2 Field Sparrows
1 Song Sparrow
9 Dark-eyed Juncos
3 Red-winged Blackbirds
7 Brown-headed Cowbirds
1 Purple Finch
1 House Finch
14 American Goldfinches
ET’s: 36 spp.
Rick