Usually on April 1st (under the guise of April Fool’s Day) I churn out some balogna about some neat birds in order to drum up some interest during a period that is often pretty dull bird-wise at Ruthven. But today I don’t have to come up with any balogna as we had a couple of interesting birds about. The ‘best’ one was a bright, loudly-singing Pine Warbler. This bird offered great views as it foraged in the treetops along the River Trail. And just downriver from it I chanced into our first Yellow-rumped Warbler of the year. A great start to our 17th Spring migration monitoring season (which will run from April 1st to May 31st).

The first two weeks of April are also quite often marked, banding-wise, by inactivity. But not today! Despite running only 5 net lanes, and these for only 4 hours because the forecast rain showed up, and setting out some traps, we handled 72 birds, banding 45 and processing 27 retraps. A big surprise was a flock of 11 Golden-crowned Kinglets caught all at the same time in Net 5 and all within 2 meters of each other. They “hit” just before the rain did forcing me to close up. The kinglets were all in very good shape carrying fat loads ranging from 3 to 5. [Our fat ‘scoring’ ranges from 0, indicating no fat, to 6 indicating a bird that is carrying so much that it weighs almost twice its “fat-free” weight.]

The areas around the feeders were very busy. The birds were taking full advantage of the copious food to give them some protection from the rain/sleet and cold wind.

Banded 45:
4 Mourning Doves
13 Golden-crowned Kinglets
1 American Robin
1 Field Sparrow
1 Song Sparrow
5 Dark-eyed Juncos
2 Red-winged Blackbirds
3 Brown-headed Cowbirds
1 House Finch
14 American Goldfinches

Retrapped 27:
2 Black-capped Chickadees
1 White-breasted Nuthatch
3 American Tree Sparrows
4 Dark-eyed Juncos
17 American Goldfinches

ET’s: 35 spp.
Rick