Migration Monitoring – September 11th, 2007

Heavy rain over night tapered off just after dawn. I arrived at the Park an hour later than our usual opening time, and was greeted by a light mist with occasional light rain.

There was not much calling, save for the regular consortium of Goldfinches and Chickadees, and the odd Blue Jay.

And so I was rather surprised to have a such a productive first net round… which turned out to be my only net round. With 60 birds in bags, I closed the nets and started processing birds in the banding lab.

Banded 60:
1 Eastern Wood Pewee
1 Least Flycatcher
3 Black-capped Chickadees
2 House Wrens
2 Swainson’s Thrushes
1 Warbling Vireo
1 Red-eyed Vireo
3 Tennessee Warblers
3 Nashville Warblers
1 Chestnut-sided Warbler
5 Magnolia Warblers
3 Black-throated Blue Warblers
1 Bay-breasted Warbler
19 Blackpoll Warblers
1 Ovenbird
1 Scarlet Tanager
1 White-throated Sparrow (first for fall)
11 American Goldfinches

Retrapped 3:
1 White-breasted Nuthatch
1 Tennessee Warbler
1 Blackpoll Warbler

It is interesting to note that of the 121 birds Brian banded yesterday, only 2 were Retrapped today (both the warblers) Which leads me to believe that for the most part, these birds have pushed on, despite their low fat scores. Perhaps the long period of drought in this area has resulted in a lack of food?? The migrants I saw today also had very low fat and muscle scores.

Loretta

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