Well before the sun came up, in the dark while opening nets, I could hear birds along the edges and in the meadow. This is exciting and usually augers well for the day. And so it was today. We were hopping from the getgo. I started actual banding shortly after 7:00 and was at it steadily until well after 11:00 – Nancy would go around and extract birds from the nets and then just feed them to me. We had a large group of students from the Special Ed department of a Brantford school visiting and they got to see as many birds as they wanted (and they were very interested in seeing a lot of them).

We ended up banding 126 which is one over the previous high for the year (125 on September 6th). But of greater interest to me was the fact that we banded 33 different species (31 on the 6th). We had a mix of neotropical migrants (eg, Blackburnian Warbler, Blackpoll Warbler, Scarlet Tanager), moderate- to short-distance migrants (eg, Lincoln’s Sparrow, Myrtle Warbler, Ruby-crowned Kinglet), Winter residents (Junco), and local residents (eg Mourning Dove). We also had 29 retraps, resulting in our handling 155 birds throughout the day. We had one ‘first’ for the year – a Savannah Sparrow. These nest commonly in the local hay fields but are rarely seen in the vicinity of the nets – the meadow vegetation is too high for them.

Cedar Waxwings seemed to be all over the place. A number of young waxwings were feeding in the grass on the lawns. I was not able to figure out what they were feeding on but they were busy at it.

Banded 126:
2 Mourning Doves
1 Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
1 Traill’s Flycatcher
1 House Wren
9 Golden-crowned Kinglets
3 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
4 Eastern Bluebirds
4 Gray-cheeked Thrushes
1 Swainson’s Thrush
1 American Robin
2 Gray Catbirds
16 Cedar Waxwings
1 Philadelphia Vireo
1 Red-eyed Vireo
2 Nashville Warblers
1 Magnolia Warbler
1 Black-throated Warbler
6 Myrtle Warblers
1 Blackburnian Warbler
7 Blackpoll Warblers
1 Ovenbird
2 Common Yellowthroats
2 Scarlet Tanagers
8 Chipping Sparrows
1 Savannah Sparrow
7 Song Sparrows
1 Lincoln’s Sparrow
1 Swamp Sparrow
23 White-throated Sparrows
1 Eastern White-crowned Sparrow
1 Dark-eyed Junco
3 House Finches
10 American Goldfinches

Retrapped 29:
1 Eastern Tufted Titmouse
4 Black-capped Chickadees
2 White-breasted Nuthatches
1 Golden-crowned Kinglet
2 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
1 Eastern Bluebird
2 Gray-cheeked Thrushes (1 put on 5 grams in 5 days)
1 Swainson’s Thrush
1 Hermit thrush
1 Cedar Waxwing
1 Blue-headed Vireo
1 Magnolia Warbler
2 Blackpoll Warblers
3 Chipping Sparrows
1 Song Sparrow
1 Swamp Sparrow
3 White-throated Sparrows
1 House Finch

ET’s: 59 spp.

Rick