Migration Monitoring – May 16th, 2007

I’ve added some interesting letters from a few of our weekend visitors to the bottom of this post. I believe these are some of the visitors who appear in the photos on the May 12th post.
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May 16th Migration Monitoring Report
I could hear the pitter patter of rain on the roof when my alarm went off at some ghastly hour this morning, so I had the luxury of an extra hour of sleep!

The cold front that pushed through in the night sure cooled things down from yesterday, to a more seasonal high of 16 C by noon today (Yesterday was over 26C) The warm weather has forced many more shrubs and trees into leaf and bloom.

Banded 42 (23 species)
2 Orchard Orioles (2nd yr males)
1 Black capped Chickadee
1 House Wren
1 Veery
1 Swainson’s Thrush
3 Grey Catbirds
1 Brown Thrasher
3 Blue-winged Warblers (yes! 3 more)
4 Tennessee Warblers
6 Yellow Warblers
2 Chestnut-sided Warblers
1 Magnolia Warbler
1 Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)
1 Western Palm Warbler
1 Black-and-white Warbler
2 American Redstarts
1 Common Yellowthroat
1 Rose-Breasted Grosbeak
1 Chipping Sparrow
1 Field Sparrow
1 Song Sparrow
2 Baltimore Orioles
4 American Goldfinches

Retrapped 17
1 Downy Woodpecker
3 Grey Catbirds
1 Philadelphia Vireo
3 Yellow Warblers
1 Common Yellowthroat
4 Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks
1 Chipping Sparrow
3 Baltimore Orioles

Most of the Retrapped birds were new returnees, seen for the first time this year.

Loretta

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Here are a few letters from some of our younger International Migratory Bird Day visitors, who, I should add, were remarkably good birders.

Dear Rick,
Thank you for the great day. My favourite bird I held was either the orchard oriole or the magnolia warbler. They’re both my favourite birds you see. We saw pictures of ourselvs in the websight you gave us. We’d like to give you some of the pictures we took but we don’t know how to get them onto our computer yet. Every day I’m asking my parents when we can go to Ruthven again. Maby we can go this Sunday but so far it doesn’t look like it.
From,
Giovanni

(click to enlarge Giovanni’s drawing)

giovanni_sbinocularviews_sm.jpg

Hi Rick,
Thank you for a fabulous day! My favourite birds were the Gray Cat Bird and the Chipping Sparrow. My favourite bird in Ontario is the Yellow-billed Loon. Is the Traill’s Flycatcher the same bird as the Least Flycatcher? I wish I was there to see the Blackburnian Warbler on May 13th. I was super excited when I held the Orchard Oriole ’cause I had never held a bird before in my life. I also loved when I held the Chipping Sparrow. Are you going to go down to see the Kirkland’s Warbler in Point Pelee? We will try to send you some photos but this is just a new computer so we haven’t quite figured out how to put them on our computer. We’ll try to come out to Ruthven again soon.
Bye,
Ezra
P.S. Our binocular views are some pictures we drew this week.

(click to enlarge Ezra’s drawing)

binocularviews_small.jpg


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