Well….I was away over the long weekend to Grand Manan Island in the Bay of Fundy where my wife, Marg, and I have bought a small cabin. Migration there was in full swing with lots of warblers about, especially Common Yellowthroats, Black-throated Green Warblers, Myrtles, American Redstarts, and Northern Parulas. One morning I got up very early and headed for the lighthouse at the south end of the island to look for incoming migrants. High overhead was a patrolling Peregrine Falcon looking to pick off stragglers, the weak, old or simply unlucky.
When I was away, the station was in good hands with Nancy Furber, Christine Madliger, and Audrey Heagy taking the reins with a host of helpers. I guess I’ll go in chronological order…..
On the 22nd the nets were open for only 2 hours as rain began early. Peter Thoem, resident census guy, reports: “Census stopped after 1 hour due to rain. Spent most of time on Mansion front steps.” Neat place to do a census from…
Banded 3:
1 Yellow Warbler
1 Blackpoll Warbler
1 Song Sparrow
Retrapped 6:
1 Gray Catbird
1 Yellow Warbler
1 Chipping Sparrow
1 Song Sparrow
2 Brown-headed Cowbirds
ET’s: 44 spp.
May 23rd:
Audrey and Nancy had a pretty good day: “Good trickle of migrants in nets (and not too many retraps!).”
Banded 51:
1 Eastern Wood Pewee
1 Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
3 Traill’s Flycatchers
1 Least Flycatcher
1 Blue Jay
1 House Wren
1 Gray-cheeked Thrush
2 Swainson’s Thrushes
1 Wood Thrush
1 American Robin
5 Gray Catbirds
4 Cedar Waxwings
1 Philadelphia Vireo
2 Red-eyed Vireos
1 Tennessee Warbler
1 Nashville Warbler
2 Yellow Warblers
5 Magnolia Warblers
2 Blackpoll Warblers
2 American Redstarts
2 Mourning Warblers
2 Common Yellowthroats
1 Wilson’s Warbler
1 Chipping Sparrow
1 Song Sparrow
1 Red-winged Blackbird
1 Baltimore Oriole
4 American Goldfinches
ET’s: 60 spp.
May 24th see previous blog entry
May 25th:
Movement has slowed right down….
Banded 11:
1 Eastern Wood Pewee
1 Gray Catbird
3 Yellow Warblers
1 Common Yellowthroat
1 Chipping Sparrow
1 Red-winged Blackbird
1 Baltimore Oriole
2 American Goldfinches
ET’s: 48 spp.
May 26th: no banding
May 27th:
Notes from the day: Hot! Even in the early morning. This was, for all intents and purposes, a summer day – no migrants, just locally breeding birds around. Had to work really hard to get enouigh birds to show to the grade 5 class from Brantford.
Found the nest of an Eastern Phoebe in the archway by the carriageway. In it was 1 Brown-headed Cowbird nestling, 2 cowbird eggs, and 2 phoebe eggs. Removed the cowbird and cowbird eggs; don’t know if the phoebe eggs will be viable.
9(!) Purple Martins seen around the martin boxes. Females carrying nesting material.
Banded 17:
1 Eastern Wood Pewee
1 Traill’s Flycatcher
1 Blue Jay
1 House Wren
1 Wood Thrush
2 Gray Catbirds
1 Common Yellowthroat
3 Indigo Buntings
2 Chipping Sparrows
1 Song Sparrow
2 Baltimore Orioles
1 American Goldfinch
ET’s: 58 spp.
Rick