Wow, what a beautiful day to kick off spring banding. Cool, but lovely sunshine, and very little wind. We lost yesterday due to wind and rain.
The river is running extremely fast, and high, but all the ice is gone. Some springs the river flats are littered with large chunks of ice some a foot or more thick, but not so this spring.
Small flocks of Golden-crowned Kinglets were moving about. There are still a few Dark-eyed Juncos and American Tree Sparrows around, as their migration north is well under way. The Common Redpolls that we were banding a couple of weeks ago are long gone.
Banded 18:
3 Black-capped Chickadees
9 Golden-crowned Kinglets
1 American Tree Sparrow
1 Song Sparrow
3 Dark-eyed Juncos
1 American Goldfinch
Retrapped 10:
3 Downy Woodpeckers
3 Black-capped Chickadee
1 American Robin
2 American Tree Sparrows
1 Dark-eyed Juncos
The Retrapped Robin has been seen once every spring since we first banded him in 2005.
Loretta
Acutally, those Redpolls aren’t too long gone. Rick and I saw one at the feeder out there on March 29th.
Yes, but just one – not the 30-50 that were hanging around during the winter, chasing away the goldfinches.