Male Cape May Warbler – a great way to start off the morning!
It was another very cold, unseasonable mid-May day…a time you associate with warming temperatures, emerging mosquitoes, and hordes of colourful long-distance migrants. Instead there was frost on the windshield, no insects to speak of (except for the rare ones the swallows were garnering over the river), and only a few birds. The nicest of the lot was a beautiful male Cape May Warbler that I pulled out of net #6 on the first round. It was all downhill from there.
This trans-Gulf migrant is a regular, albeit uncommon, breeding bird at Ruthven.
Given the paucity of birds but the plethora of muffins….and the warmth inside the banding lab…..we spent a fair amount of time inside between net rounds and census, discussing momentous issues. Bev and Irene hit us with the non-intuitive revelation that baking helps them lose weight! Evidently, the moving around to do the preparation and baking burns calories and bringing them to the lab burns more, especially if you don’t consume them yourself but give them to others.
Chris then came up with the brilliant idea of the Ruthven Weight Loss Program: the lab would become a repository for baked goods from people wishing to lose weight. To encourage good health, some members could enter the “Accelerated Program” whereby they would hustle around the grounds doing net checks while we sat back and got rid of the baked goods to help them out. He doesn’t look like a Big Idea Guy but you have to admit: he hit a home run with this one!
Male Common Yellowthroat.
Banded 17:
1 Mourning Dove
1 White-breasted Nuthatch
1 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
1 Yellow-throated Vireo
1 Yellow Warbler
1 Cape May Warbler
1 Myrtle Warbler
1 Common Yellowthroat
2 Rose-breasted Grosbeaks
1 Chipping Sparrow
1 Common Grackle
2 Brown-headed Cowbirds
3 American Goldfinches
Retrapped 41:
1 Red-bellied Woodpecker
2 Downy Woodpeckers
1 Eastern Tufted Titmouse
1 Black-capped Chickadee
3 White-breasted Nuthatches
2 House Wrens
3 American Robins
1 European Starling
2 Yellow Warblers
2 Northern Cardinals
6 Rose-breasted Grosbeaks
5 Chipping Sparrows
2 Field Sparrows
1 Song Sparrow
7 Brown-headed Cowbirds
2 Baltimore Orioles
ET’s: 59 spp.
Photo Gallery: (Thanks to Bob Fotheringham)
Male Yellow-rumped (Myrtle) Warbler. -B. Fotheringham
Blue-winged Warbler -B. Fotheringham
House Wren – scourge of nest box nesters. -B. Fotheringham
Male Rose-breasted Grosbeak. – B. Fotheringham
Male Brown-headed Cowbird -B. Fotheringham
Yellow-throated Vireo. -B. Fotheringham
Rick