On Saturday, Keira, Alex and I all set out for the first day of banding at the farm. My expectations were low due to the low amount of birds encountered while we were clearing the site, but the morning proved productive! We banded 51 birds and recaptured 3. Of those, there were 17 Bobolinks banded, which is a fantastic start to our BOBO monitoring program this year. We were surprised in the early morning by 7 Baltimore Orioles in a single net (net 3). This net is quite fruitful in the fall due to the abundance of riverbank grapes which many birds enjoy. Later that day we also caught a recap older male Rose-breasted Grosbeak in this net. We banded a good number of juvenile Song and Swamp sparrows which are likely hatched nearby and are dispersing into the food-rich prairie.
Banded
2 Traill’s Flycatchers
1 Warbling Vireo
1 Northern House Wren
1 Carolina Wren
2 Gray Catbirds
1 American Robin
8 Song Sparrows
8 Swamp Sparrows
17 Bobolinks
8 Baltimore Orioles
2 Indigo Buntings
Recaps
1 Rose-breasted Grosbeak
2 Song Sparrows
Last Wednesday and Friday, Alex, Emma (my mum) and I spent a lot of effort clearing net lanes and trails. Luckily for us, the Gosnell’s had already mowed the trails through the prairie and the accessible net lanes, which made the workload a lot less (thanks!). Nonetheless, it still took us about 4 hours each day to finish the work. Cutting the Bobolink lanes into the grass was no small feat! When working in the grasslands last summer we would often create creative arrays of nets to try and confuse the birds into the visible nets. I tried to employ this same strategy for catching BOBOs here and it seems to be working well so far. As of right now we have a “T” shape of nets, but I’m hoping to add one more to make it into a capital “I”. The Bobolinks are slightly big for the nets, so they will often bounce out of one net but then get caught in the other.
Good work! It’s a lot of hard work you’re doing and then you write such a good report. Thank you for all the news.