When I left the house this morning and looked up….NO clouds, just Orion on the hunt almost directly above me. With that you know that Fall must be here. The NE wind continued to blow through the night and, again, birds were busy along the edges and in the prairie grass meadow. The only trouble with this wind: it fills the N – S running nets with leaves, so after the first net round you pretty well have to close them. Even so, we banded 69 more birds, mostly sparrows.

I thought the sapsucker was a nice sighting (and the first Winter Wren and male Eastern Bluebird), but the bird that took the “bird of the day” was a first for the Farm: a Wilson’s Snipe! It flew up from the path that leads between nets 3 & 1. It was so fast that I just had time to ID it – the thought of getting photo would have been a dream.

Banded 69:
1 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
1 Black-capped Chickadee
3 Golden-crowned Kinglets
4 Ruby-crowned Kinglets
1 Winter Wren

1 Eastern Bluebird

1 Savannah Sparrow
13 White-throated Sparrows
9 Song Sparrows
5 Lincoln’s Sparrows
19 Swamp Sparrows
5 Red-winged Blackbirds
2 Common Yellowthroats
1 Myrtle Warbler
1 Northern Cardinal
2 Indigo Buntings
ET’s: 33 spp.
Rick