Male Baltimore Oriole taking advantage of flowering trees. -MMG
This female Baltimore Oriole is gathering dandelion ‘fluff’ for her nest lining. -MMG
Records are made to be broken….so it’s said. But after banding 117 Baltimore Orioles last year, 66 more than we had ever banded before n a single season, I thought that record was pretty safe. Sort of like Wayne Gretzky’s hockey scoring records. But as of yesterday we were actually tied. Surprisingly there wasn’t much action at the oriole jam feeder this morning; the birds are getting down to the serious stuff – building nests and raising young, the reason they make the long trek from Central America in the first place. By closing time we hadn’t caught a “new” (i.e., unbanded) oriole. When we went to close nets 1 & 1A we found 3! This pushed the record to 120!
SY-Male Baltimore Oriole – breaking the banding record of 117 set last year – this is #118. -DOL
This SY-Female extended the BAOR banding record to 120! -DOL
Otherwise it was a pretty bland, one might almost say boring, morning with net rounds carried out in ever-increasing heat. The one BIG surprise was the Great Egret that Liam saw when doing census. It was flying south down the river.
Banded 19:
1 Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
1 Traill’s flycatcher
1 House Wren
1 Gray Catbird
1 Cedar Waxwing
Black chin and wide yellow terminal tail band indicate that this Cedar Waxwing is a male. -MMG
1 Red-eyed Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo. -MMG
3 Yellow Warblers
6 Indigo Buntings
1 Song Sparrow
3 Baltimore Orioles
ET’s: 52 spp.
Other Pictures:
American Robin on sumac – a good food source during hard times. -MMG
Black-capped Chickadees at Ruthven have become very quiet and hard to find – must be sitting on eggs. -MMG
Although we banded only 1 Cedar Waxwing today we counted at least 90 – they are arriving back in swarms. -MMG
Mallard ducklings – the same ones on the blog from a couple of weeks ago. They’re growing fast. -MMG
Rick