The first American Tree Sparrow of the season.
It was another cold night and some of the rain that fell froze on the poles and nets making opening….interesting, and quite slow. Bad weather is forecast to arrive tonight and run into tomorrow and I think the birds know it. (How they can tell is a mystery to me, but I’m sure they know what’s coming.) To get ready they were feeding heavily. All around the site we saw BIG flocks of grackles and starlings (one flock of grackles we conservatively estimated at 3,000+ birds). American Robins weren’t as numerous today as they have been for the past week but their place was taken by Cedar Waxwings. I don’t think these birds are going to give up until every last grape is gone! We had several significant “hits” and, in the end, banded a (new) one-day record 190!! This brings our Fall total up to 1,287 – this is over 600 waxwings more than in our previous best season (662 in 2011). They must have had a very successful breeding season! Several of the Waxwings we banded at Ruthven have been recovered in Georgia. The more you band, the more chance there is of one of them being recovered somewhere else. I wonder if some of these will show up in far off places.
Hermit Thrush with a mishapen bill.
We sometimes capture birds with bill abnormalities – often a sign of keratin disorder. Today we caught a Hermit Thrush with an odd-shaped bill and a Cedar Waxwing with a serious “overbite”. Interestingly, the waxwing also had a twisted foot (as you can see in the picture. It would be interesting to know if the bill and foot deformities were somehow related.
Cedar Waxwing with an extensive overbite.
The same Waxwing with a twisted right foot – left foot is normal.
Ruthven alumnus, Christine Madliger, keeps in contact regularly about “bird stuff”. She passed on this article reference regarding Swifts. I can’t help but agree with her assessment (and you will too when you read this article!).
Birds are just amazing – I never cease to be impressed.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24373-swifts-stay-airborne-for-six-months-at-a-time.html#.UmluRPmbNGL
Banded 272:
2 Mourning Doves
1 Downy Woodpecker
1 Black-capped Chickadee
1 Brown Creeper
8 Golden-crowned Kinglets
6 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
17 Hermit Thrushes
1 American Robin
190 Cedar Waxwings
1 Northern Cardinal
4 American Tree Sparrows
2 Chipping Sparrows
3 Song Sparrows
11 White-throated Sparrows
19 Dark-eyed Juncos
5 American Goldfinches
ET’s: 39 spp.
Rick
“Bad weather is forecast to arrive tonight and run into tomorrow and I think the birds know it. (How they can tell is a mystery to me, but I’m sure they know what’s coming.)”
So, do you have ANY ideas at all how it is that the birds know the bad weather is coming? What has been proposed? Theories? C’mon? They DO know? But how?
I think barometric pressure has a lot to do with it.