It was very early – still quite dark – but you could hear the sparrows ‘chipping’ excitedly all through the river flats. This always augers well. The first round was huge! We used up every bird bag we had taking birds out of the nets and transporting them back to the lab (and we have well over 50 bags). We got birds out of every net.

I think that, with the clearing of all the bad weather we’ve had of late, birds were on the move last night – many of our already-banded birds moved out and a lot of new ones moved in. And although the early calling was in the river flats, there were lots of birds throughout the site.

Interestingly, the wind picked up not long after the sun rose and as it grew more blustery, the bird traffic diminished so we had only the one BIG net round. Even so, we were getting birds up to closing time shortly, after noon.

Another nice thing about the day was the mix of people that came out to observe and help: the Husak boys were here early and Lukian is turning into quite a good scribe; Elaine Serena and a group of HNC folks arrived to help out; Phil Alaimo was here for a couple of hours of much needed net extraction; and even Bill Read, Bluebird President, showed up to keep his skills honed. So it was a lot of fun just from a social standpoint. And when all’s said and done, that’s what it should be all about, right?

Banded 122:
1 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
3 Black-capped Chickadees
9 Golden-crowned Kinglets
22 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
4 Hermit Thrushes
3 Gray Catbirds
11 Cedar Waxwings
1 Red-eyed Vireo
13 Myrtle Warblers
1 Chipping Sparrow
1 Field Sparrow
6 Song Sparrows
1 Lincoln’s Sparrow
2 Swamp Sparrows
29 White-throated Sparrows
2 Eastern White-crowned Sparrows
6 Dark-eyed Juncos
2 House Finches
5 American Goldfinches

Retrapped 20:
2 White-breasted Nuthatches
3 Hermit Thrushes
1 Common Yellowthroat
3 Chipping Sparrows
4 Song Sparrows
3 White-throated Sparrows
1 Eastern White-crowned Sparrow
1 Dark-eyed Junco
2 House Finches

ET’s: 47 spp.

Rick