Three “new” Tufted Titmice. We subsequently caught and banded a fourth…..and saw 3 others. And just yesterday we were scratching our heads wondering where the titmice were. -KMP
The unsettled rainy weather of late brought fallouts of migrants in parts of the GTA and at Long Point but we didn’t see them at Ruthven. Mostly the woods have been pretty empty. I have been making a more critical” assessment of our site and am struck by the lack of fruit. There are small patches of grapes, sure, but just small patches. And the dogwoods are not carrying much fruit. I would think this must be connected to the hot Summer we just went through. Whatever the reason, there isn’t a lot of food for fructivores – and many birds that we think of insectivores eat a fair amount of fruit in the Fall. This may explain why we’re seeing loads of Cedar Waxwings (>135 today) but they’re just flying over, not settling to feed.
A number of industrious spiders have used our netpole guy lines to anchor their webs. -KNP
Our banding numbers climbed out of the doldrums, from a paltry 13 yesterday to 34 today although this is still not a great total for the time of year. There was an interesting diversity around – we tallied 52 species for the day. We have been getting a lot of swallows, mostly Northern Rough-winged Swallows, this week feeding over the river as they move south. We estimated that there were at least 70 today. Seems late doesn’t it?
Eastern Phoebe – early to arrive and late to leave. -KMP
Banded 34:
1 Eastern Phoebe
3 Blue Jays
4 Tufted Titmice
1 Black-capped Chickadee
1 Swainson’s Thrush
4 Tennessee Warblers
3 Nashville Warblers
4 Blackpoll Warblers
1 Northern Waterthrush
1 Common Yellowthroat
2 Song Sparrows
2 White-throated Sparrows
1 Purple Finch
6 American Goldfinches
ET’s: 52 spp.
Rick