Thirty-five doesn’t seem like a very big number – especially by today’s standards; but if it’s the number of birds in the mist nets on your first net round, when you’re still half asleep, you tend to get an appreciation for the magnitude of a number such as 35! Bird banders, do indeed, know what I’m talking about and we tend to experience the bigness of numbers, dare I say, in “burdensome” ways. After we count sheep going to sleep, before we know it we are waking up counting birds.
Nevertheless, it was a very good day with an amazing variety of species, many of them warblers. When the number of species is 50% of your banding totals, you can’t complain about lack of diversity!
Two each of Scarlet Tanagers, Eastern Wood-Pewees, and Black-throated Green Warblers was interesting as we don’t catch them as often as you would expect. A Yellow Warbler was a late catch, and to this end, it was a good day and quite a busy one at that.
Banded 49:
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1
Downy Woodpecker 2
Eastern Wood-Pewee 2
House Wren 1
Veery 1
Swainson’s Thrush 2
American Robin 3
Gray Catbird 1
Warbling Vireo 1
Red-eyed Vireo 5
Blue-winged Warbler 1
Tennessee Warbler 3
Nashville Warbler 1
Yellow Warbler 1
Magnolia Warbler 1
Black-throated Green Warbler 2
Blackpoll Warbler 3
American Restart 3
Ovenbird 6
Common Yellowthroat 2
Wilson’s Warbler 1
Scarlet Tanager 2
Northern Cardinal 1
Indigo Bunting 1
Song Sparrow 2
Retraps: 22
Mourning Dove 2
Black-capped Chickadee 2
House Wren 1
Gray Catbird 3
Red-eyed Vireo 3
Blue-winged Warbler 1
Tennessee Warbler 1
Magnolia Warbler 1
Blackpoll Warbler 1
Common Yellowthroat 4
Northern Cardinal 1
Song Sparrow 2
ET: 49 spp.
Mike
Vice-principal Deb Bell getting some instruction on banding Chickadees. -KAP
And From Fern Hill Oakville:
This was our first day of banding at the Oakville campus of Fern Hill. Well, actually our main effort was getting things up and going: finish setting nets (we’ve added a couple of new lanes); put up a feeder; squirrel-proof the feeder pole (thanks Chris Hincks!!!); get a new set of bands sorted out….the usual beginning of the season stuff. But in-between we did get some neat birds.
Deb with her first banded bird – that chickadee. -KAP
Banded 11:
2 Eastern Phoebe (a 1st for Oakville)
2 Black-capped Chickadees
1 Swainson’s Thrush
2 Gray Catbirds
1 Wilson’s Warbler
3 Song Sparrows
ET’s: 26 spp.
Chris Hincks and Katherine with Eastern Phoebes they’ve just banded.
The first YO (Young Ornithologist) bander of the Fall season: Thomas with a Gray Catbird. -KAP
A very scruffy adult Song Sparrow – in the middle of a complete moult. -KAP
Note the “ratty” tail of this Song Sparrow. -KAP
Rick