In my lifetime I’ll bet I haven’t seen more than a handful of Connecticut Warblers. And I’ve never had the opportunity to photograph one. But no sooner had visitor Rob Mueller arrived but he was able to take the picture of one! In my hand! And as if that wasn’t enough, he was able to get a shot of a second one while doing the census with Peter Thoem along the Carolinian Trail. These are ‘skulkers’ and when they’re caught they tend to be close to the ground – as this one was: caught in the bottom panel of net 5.

It was foggy this morning but not particularly cool. And when the sun managed to burn the fog off it was downright hot. I’m starting to yearn for the embracing temperatures of Svalbard! There was not a lot of bird activity this morning but there were some interesting things: in one net round we caught 4 of the 5 ‘brown thrushes’: Veery, Wood Thrush, Swainson’s Thrush, and Gray-cheedked Thrush (we just needed the Hermit Thrush to complete the sweep). We also retrapped an older male Red-breasted Grosbeak. There were pictures of this bird in a blog from the Spring. The head and body feathering would make one think it was a young male (which resemble females except for the red on the breast and under the wings). But this bird, while having the brown head and body feathering of a young male, has the dark black wings and tail of an older bird. And we know it is an older bird as it was banded as an AHY male in May of 2008 (making it at least 4 years old). Very odd.

Another interesting retrap was a Black-capped Chickadee that we initially banded in 2008.

Banded 21:
1 Mourning Dove
1 Least Flycatcher
1 Veery
2 Gray-cheeked Thrushes
2 Swainson’s Thrushes
1 Wood Thrush
2 American Robins
1 Red-eyed Vireo
1 Nashville Warbler
6 Blackpoll Warblers
1 Ovenbird
1 Connecticut Warbler
1 Common Yellowthroat

Retrapped 7:
2 Black-capped Chickadees
3 Common Yellowthroats
1 Rose-breasted Grosbeak
1 Song Sparrow

ET’s: 49 spp.

Birds banded per 100 net hours: 17

Rick