It’s been a warm….no, hot….week. Especially for the middle of October! Showers on the night of the 16th/17th and overcast skies on the 17th brought some birds down and kept them down as they foraged along the edges – so we had a pretty good catching day. We handled 92 birds: 60 new bandings and 32 recaptures (many of these chose not to continue their migratory flight in these conditions).
But today the wind picked up and blew hard out of the SW with gusts in the late morning topping 60 km/hr. Not good netting conditions so we were restricted to the number of nets used, opening only those that were in sheltered locations in relation to the wind. And then the temperature soared into the high 20’s with the humidex reading climbing to over 30. So today we had slim pickings with only 29 birds handled. Feast or famine it seems.
October 17th; Banded 60:
1 Mourning Dove
1 Eastern Phoebe
1 Blue Jay
1 Black-capped Chickadee
1 Brown Creeper
6 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
1 Hermit Thrush
7 American Robins
1 Northern Mockingbird
8 Cedar Waxwings
1 Blue-headed Vireo
5 Yellow-rumped Warblers
1 Chipping Sparrow
3 White-throated Sparrows
2 White-crowned Sparrows
1 Dark-eyed Junco
1 Purple finch
2 House Finches
16 American Goldfinches
ET’s: 43 spp.
October 18th; Banded 17:
1 Black-capped Chickadee
2 Golden-crowned Kinglets
1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet
2 American Robins
4 Yellow-rumped Warblers
1 Northern Cardinal
6 American Goldfinches
ET’s: 32 spp.
Photo Gallery (thanks to Caleb Scholtens):
Rick