Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Songbird diversity is still in the marsh region

The bird diversity was here in celebration of Lester Peyton’s birthday. Lester was visiting from the warm south Cincinnati area. Happy Birthday Lester!

It was a cool morning in the marsh. These are signs of colder days I am afraid. With the colder weather comes other great birds, so I will look forward to that. The highlights for the day should tell you what a day it was! These include a Scarlet Tanager, Yellow-throated Vireo, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, and another Connecticut Warbler. Take a look at this bird! A beautiful sight! A nice hooked bill to attack a few caterpillars!

One hundred sixty birds new banded and a bazillion recaptures—only 88, but who is counting! I guess the birds like it here. Most of the recaptures were Blackpoll Warblers and thrushes. Since the birds have been low on fat reserves it makes sense to stay around a while to fatten up before leaving. If the food is good why leave?

Eighteen species of warbler were seen today including Tennessee, Nashville, quiz bird, Chestnut-sided, Magnolia, Cape May, Black-throated Blue, Myrtle, Black-throated Green, Blackburnian!, Western Palm, Bay-breasted, Blackpoll, Black-and-White, American Redstart, Ovenbird, Connecticut, and Common Yellowthroat. This is not a bad day! Just in case you did not believe that we caught another Connecticut Warbler... This is a picture taken today!

The Scarlet Tanager was an adult male. See its black wings? They are all black including the primary coverts. No brown primary coverts like a hatching year bird would have.

Another highlight was this quiz bird: See its diagnostic green triangle on its back. For those of you that are color blind, you should still see the triangle on its back.

Beach top species:
Blackpoll Warbler-17
American Redstart-2

Main Inside top species:
Blackpoll Warbler-41
Swainson’s Thrush-16
Gray-cheeked Thrush-12
American Redstart-7
Black-throated Blue Warbler-7
Ovenbird-6---plus a couple very fat Ovenbirds recaptured!
Here is the lateral view of the quiz bird does this help?!

I call this bird the butterfly of the bird world because of all of its colors. It is an adult male and boy will he look sharp come spring time! This is a Northern Parula. Did you know they had a two colored beak? Hmmm...

Tomorrow should be good so I hope you can get outside to rack up the fall warbler species! There were some Rose-breasted Grosbeaks around but we did not get to see them up close and personal today. They are still nice to see and know they are here.

No comments:

Post a Comment