Birds are everywhere!

Southwest winds brought in more birds today with few of the second wave birds trickling in. The low pressure cells are moving north soon after they hit the Oklahoma/Arkansas region instead of moving east to northeast. I am not complaining. We have had few northeast or east winds which can cut down on the amount of birds in our area. It has been busy and enjoyable with the birds that we have had around.

I cannot speak for most of the day except from the numbers given. I was conducting a banding demonstration for the regional Soil and Water Conservation folks at Old Woman Creek State Wildlife Area and by the way, it is a great place to go bird watching too.

There was an Orchard Oriole and Baltimore Orioles taunting me way up in the trees and I heard several species of warblers from the Visitor’s Center. They have great trails along the creek to explore for migrants too! We have so many great places to bird in Ohio—it is one of our greatest assets.

Back to the birds…. while I was working at Old Woman Creek wouldn’t you know they caught a male Summer Tanager in Navarre! Yeah, I only saw little pictures on the digital camera view finder and guess what, you will have to wait until tomorrow for the picture. No, it is not like the check is in the mail, stay tuned they are coming…

The catch for today in Navarre consisted of 212 new banded birds with 25 recaptures. Seventeen warbler species were caught with the highlights for the day being Summer Tanager, Golden-winged Warbler male, Cape May Warbler, Eastern Kingbird, Yellow-breasted Chat!, and five Red-breasted Nuthatches. Sure seems like the northern birds are hanging around a bit longer than usual. I even heard that a small flock of Pine Siskins were in the trees in the parking lot of the Sportsman’s Migratory Bird Center this afternoon. We did catch the first Baltimore Oriole today!

Top 7 species for the day:
White-throated Sparrow - 26
Myrtle (Yellow-rumped) Warbler - 26
Gray Catbird - 21
Ruby-crowned Kinglet - 21*
Nashville Warbler - 16**
Western Palm Warbler - 14
Yellow Warbler - 14

*highest capture for the day for Ruby-crowned Kinglets
**12 birds were caught in one net at one time!

If you cannot tell by now you all should be out birding before work, after work, take off from work, take vacation for the month of May and enjoy Spring! The birds are everywhere! Enjoy the green spaces near you.