October 5th & some photos

I had only one mosquito encounter today and it went badly, very badly, for the mosquito. The cold nights are starting to take their toll on the little bloodsuckers, reducing their numbers and making their reaction times slower.

There was a lot of bird activity this morning. Interestingly it was in an unusual pattern: when we catch a lot of birds, we get the most in the #10-2-4-6 net “corridor” with “spillover” showing up in nets 8 & 9. Today it was exactly the opposite: nets 8 & 9 accounted for  52% of the birds handled. I’m not sure why. I know that there’s a big grape/berry crop in the front of the Mansion and in that corridor but there’s a lot of food throughout right now.

It’s always been interesting to me to see the variety of birds, that you think of as insectivores, that feed on berries in the Fall. Adding to this list this morning was a Blackpoll Warbler which I watched pick off and swallow dogwood berries. I banded 5 of these birds; two of them had huge fat loads (6 out of 7 on the MAPS fat scoring) and weights of 19.8 g. and 20.4g. Without any fat these little warblers weigh only 10-11 g. These two birds have enough fuel right now to go as far as Central America, if not further, nonstop. They spend the winter in South America.

Banded 65:
1 Mourning Dove
1 Eastern Phoebe
2 Brown Creepers
3 Golden-crowned Kinglets
3 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
1 Gray-cheeked Thrush
1 Swainson’s Thrush
2 Hermit Thrushes
1 Gray Catbird
6 Cedar Waxwings
1 Red-eyed Vireo
1 Nashville Warbler
1 Black-throated Blue Warbler
14 Yellow-rumped Warblers
5 Blackpoll Warblers
1 Northern Cardinal
5 Song Sparrows
5 White-throated Sparrows
1 Eastern White-crowned Sparrow (first of the Fall Season)
10 American Goldfinches

Retrapped 4:
2 Black-capped Chickadees
1 Song Sparrow
1 American Goldfinch

ET’s:  40 species

Rick

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Here are some photos taken yesterday by Pete Scholtens. Thanks for sending them Pete!

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