There was a heavy fog at opening time. It provided sort of an eerie backdrop for a pack of coyotes that were yipping and howling not too far off. This seemed to excite a couple of Great Horned Owls which set off in turn an Eastern Screech Owl which seemed to excite at least 3 different groups of Wild Turkeys. Kind of an interesting opening cacophony.
The weather on this last day of migration monitoring was….exquisite. By noon it was 17 degrees and the sun was so hot I was comfortable in just a t-shirt. The most noticeable thing though was the lack of birds. We banded only 12; in fact, we had more retraps (13) than new birds. It’s time to hang ’em up for another season. Sure, there will be birds moving for another week or two but the return on the effort required to catch/count them wouldn’t be worth it.
We started taking down the nets. It wasn’t until then that it really hit me that we were done for another year – where has the time gone!?

THANKS TO EVERYONE THAT LENT A HAND! (we had 21 volunteers contribute over 730 hours to make it happen)

In total, we banded 2,408 birds of 79 species this Fall. If anyone is interested in the numbers of birds of each species banded simply e-mail me at rludkin@hotmail.com and I will be happy to send you, as an attachment, a list of all the birds caught (year by year for the past 15 years) and a summary.
And should you have any questions arising from these – just contact me and ask away.

Banded 12:
1 Mourning Dove
1 Brown Creeper
1 Golden-crowned Kinglet
1 American Tree Sparrow
2 White-throated Sparrows
3 Dark-eyed Juncos
3 American Goldfinches

Retrapped 13:
1 Blue Jay
1 Black-capped Chickadee
1 Yellow-rumped Warbler
1 American Tree Sparrow (first banded in January ’09)
7 Dark-eyed Juncos (1 banded in January ’09)
2 American Goldfinches

ET’s: 30 spp.

Rick