Wow! What weather we’ve been getting. I could have sworn that it was late November – if it hadn’t been for the migrant bird species all around. I must confess that I’ve been doing some banding but it’s been tough slogging with an ample supply of cold and wind. Hard on me and certainly hard on the birds. But as long as they can find food things will be ok. I banded 2 very different species on May 5th: Western Palm Warbler and Eastern White-crowned Sparrow. I recaptured one of each today and both had increased their weights by over 14%. The sparrow was more understandable for me as it eats seeds and we’ve had a number around the feeders taking advantage of any spillage. But the Warbler was surprise as insects seem (to me at least) to be in short supply. Evidently not that short.
It’s not just birds that benefit from supplemental feeding. There’s been a marked lack of baked goods at the banding lab. But the spell was broken today with this amazing cake. If I was a migrant I should be able to put in another few hundred kilometers…..
A few people have sent me pictures over the past few days and Marnie (who brought the cake and did a census) took some today. I’ll break them up into groups: earlier in the week and today:
This week
From Today:
Rick