Wednesday, October 24, 2007

No cold fronts since September...

Well, folks this is that last consecutive banding day for the fall migration monitoring project 2007. There will be a few more days this month and then not again until next April when we start the spring banding schedule. Any band recovery info that comes in, I will report them here.

It has been a slow drawn out season with the northerly cold fronts not really materializing until now in the month of October. We had not seen any since mid-September. Numbers are low from average years in the fall season and can be attributed to the poor weather conditions. The kinglets are coming in finally but no sign of an American Tree Sparrow as of yet.

Early today the winds were out of the WSW and soon turned to the strong North to Northwest by 09:00 AM, blowing up to 15 mph.Today we caught 86 new birds and 15 recaptures. The recaptures consisted of mostly White-throated Sparrows, a couple Hermit Thrushes, Swainson's Thrush, and a Blackpoll Warbler.

Top five species banded:
Golden-crowned Kinglet - 20
Myrtle (yellow-rumped) Warbler - 18
Ruby-crowned Kinglet - 16
Hermit Thrush - 8
American Goldfinch - 4

There were quite a few Rusty Blackbirds around. We managed to catch one of them an adult female. The warblers at this time of year were slim with Myrtles dominating. A Common Yellowthroat (immature male) was captured new and the banded Blackpoll Warbler with tons of fat reserves. Only 5 species of Sparrows banded and seen today: White-throated, Song, Swamp, Fox, and Slate-colored (Dark-eyed) Junco.

Until next time, enjoy the beauty of the season.

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