We banded steadily from the first round until closing, not overwhelming numbers but steady. And every net round was interesting – you just didn’t know what you might get. Peter Thoem did a lengthy census and turned up 62 species and by the end of the day we had encountered 79 species; 18 of these were warblers including 6 firsts for the year: Northern Parula, Chestnut-sided, Magnolia, Blackburnian, Bay-breasted, and American Redstart.
The Fox Den Trail will be the place to be for the next 2 weeks. It seems to be a catch basin for warblers. And right now (and probably for the next week) there are NO mosquitoes. Nancy and I, after crunching today’s numbers, took a stroll back along it so we could see the warblers that others were reporting. There are a couple of small sloughs along the trail and they were hopping with life: warblers foraging in the shrubs around them, White-throated Sparrows, bathing in them, and a couple of Rusty Blackbirds wading belly-deep to grab submerged larvae. The trail winds through a carpet of wildflowers. Anne Klaus, keeper of the trail, has done a marvellous job keeping Garlic Mustard in check. So treat yourself sometime in the next week to ten days….before the mosquitoes emerge.
We had 3 notable recaptures of birds banded in previous years:
– Yellow Warbler banded as an ASY bird on May 6, 2013, making him at least 5 years old.
– male Baltimore Oriole banded as a SY bird on May 3, 2009, making him 8 years old.
– Gray Catbird banded as an AHY bird on July 13, 2007, making it at least 10 years old!
Banded 76:
1 Northern flicker
1 Blue Jay
4 Ruby-crowned Kinglets (all female)
1 Veery
1 Wood Thrush
3 Gray Catbirds
1 Blue-winged Warbler
4 Nashville Warblers
1 Orange-crowned Warbler
6 Yellow Warblers
3 Magnolia Warblers
7 Yellow-rumped Warblers
1 Black-throated Blue Warbler
1 Ovenbird
2 Common Yellowthroats
2 Rose-breasted Grosbeaks
1 Song Sparrow
1 Lincoln’s Sparrow
4 Swamp Sparrows
10 White-throated Sparrows
2 Eastern White-crowned Sparrows
2 Red-winged Blackbirds
3 Baltimore Orioles
13 American Goldfinches
1 House Sparrow
ET’s: 79 spp.
Gallery:
Rick