The migration has slowed tremendously. Take a minute to sit back and just consider how many birds and how much biomass has moved from the south to the north in the past 2 months. Mind blowing isn’t it!?
It was very slow today – all locally breeding birds except for a Swainson’s Thrush with a good fat load, which suggests that it is moving on with a good distance yet to go.
And while that bird has a way to go before nesting, birds here are well into it: goslings and Mallard ducklings on the river, young Robins about, Tree Swallows with eggs and even some with hatchlings, Purple Martins building nests, and one visitor today brought back a picture of either a Pewee or Traill’s Flycatcher sitting on a nest high in a tree down by the cemetery.

Banded 13:
1 Swainson’s Thrush
1 American Robin
2 Gray Catbirds
1 American Redstart
2 Indigo Buntings
1 Eastern Towhee (a male in prime breeding condition – we see few of them here)
1 Song Sparrow
4 American Goldfinches

Retrapped 14:
1 Blue Jay
1 Black-capped Chickadee
1 Gray Catbird
2 Yellow Warblers (both banded as adults in May 2006)
2 Common Yellowthroats
1 Rose-breasted Grosbeak
1 Indigo Bunting
1 Brown-headed Cowbird
2 Orchard Orioles
2 American Goldfinches

ET’s: 55 spp.

Rick