We were VERY fortunate that Audrey Heagy was available to cover the Thanksgiving Weekend banding effort. (I was doing the familky thing on Grand Manan Island in New Brunswick.) Audrey has many years of banding experience having run the Cabot Head Bird Observatory for a number of years before taking on the management of the Canadian Migration Monitoring Network through Bird Studies Canada. In essence what this means is that Audrey went from being a field worker to pushing copious mounds of paper around a desk. She was itching to get back into the field….

Well, the field was itching for her to get back as the birds showed up in large numbers. She banded 329 birds and retrapped 74. That’s quite a load for 3 days! Not only that, but on Saturday she got to entertain a large group of car cruisers – old car buffs. She was described by them as being “very congenial”. Maybe they just mistook “congenial” for being run off your feet.

3-Day Banding Totals:
1 Eastern Wood Pewee
1 Eastern Tufted Titmouse
3 Black-capped Chickadees
2 Winter Wrens
27 Golden-crowned Kinglets
47 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
6 Eastern Bluebirds
2 Swainson’s Thrushes
8 Hermit Thrushes
3 American Robins
2 Gray Catbirds
2 European Starlings
1 Blue-headed Vireo
3 Nashville Warblers
1 Orange-crowned Warbler
77 Yellow-rumped Warblers
1 Common Yellowthroat
2 Northern Cardinals
10 Chipping Sparrows
13 Song Sparrows
1 Swamp Sparrow
2 Fox Sparrows
19 White-throated Sparrows
1 Eastern White-crowned Sparrow
9 Dark-eyed Juncos
2 House Finches
83 American Goldfinches

Retrapped 74:
1 Downy Woodpecker
1 Eastern Wood Pewee
1 Eastern tufted Titmouse
6 Black-capped Chickadees
4 White-breasted Nuthatches
1 House Wren
3 Golden-crowned Kinglets
6 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
6 Eastern Bluebirds
3 Hermit Thrushes
1 Gray Catbird
1 Nashville Warbler
2 Orange-crowned Warblers
1 Yellow-rumped Warbler
3 Chipping Sparrows
1 Field Sparrow
4 Song Sparrows
2 White-throated Sparrows
2 Dark-eyed Juncos
25 American Goldfinches

Rick