It was Mother’s Day today so any bird caught that had a brood patch (indicating she was sitting on eggs) got extra special attention. There must have been a lot of bird movement through the night as we had our “biggest” day of the year so far in terms of number of species encountered – 74 (compared with 57 yesterday). This total included 5 firsts for the year: Common Tern, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Bay-breasted Warbler, and American Redstart. In all we saw 13 species of warblers on the day.
The day also featured a workshop run by Audrey Heagy, a certified trainer from the North American Banding Council. She was teaching our banders and bander-wantobe’s the nuances of aging and sexing birds based on plumage characteristics/moult limits. We were fortunate in having a lot of birds to learn from: a total of 93 based on 59 banded and 34 retraps. Audrey is an excellent teacher and we all learned a lot. We were joined in this by Dr. Ken Perry, an avian ecologist from Ireland. He got a chance to view (and/or band) some pretty brilliant birds – American Redstart, Blackburnian Warbler, Indigo Bunting, Rose-breasted Grosbeak to list a few. On the whole it was an excellent day – made better by the goodies baked by Michelle and Faye.
Banded 59:
1 Mourning Dove
1 Downy Woodpecker
2 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
1 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
1 Veery
1 Wood Thrush
1 American Robin
3 Gray Catbirds
1 Blue-winged Warbler
3 Nashville Warblers
4 Yellow Warblers
1 Chestnut-sided Warblers
1 Magnolia Warbler
1 Yellow-rumped Warbler
1 Blackburnian Warbler
2 American Redstarts
1 Common Yellowthroat
6 Rose-breasted Grosbeaks
5 Eastern White-crowned Sparrows
1 Common Grackle
2 Brown-headed Cowbird
1 Baltimore Oriole
1 Orchard Oriole
17 American Goldfinches
Retrapped 34:
1 Hairy Woodpecker
1 Black-capped Chickadee
2 White-breasted Nuthatches
1 American Robin
1 Gray Catbird
4 Yellow Warblers
1 Rose-breasted Grosbeaks
1 Indigo Bunting
3 Chipping Sparrows
3 Song Sparrows
4 Eastern White-crowned Sparrows
6 Brown-headed Cowbirds
1 Baltimore Oriole
1 Orchard Oriole
4 American Goldfinches
ET’s: 74 species