Saturday, May 16, 2009

Second pulse of the second wave hit today!

Did you know that the weather people do not always get the weather accurate?! Hmmmm! The warm front stuck around longer than predicted and was very warm this morning with the winds blowing out of the SW so that meant get your running shoes on at the banding station! The second pulse of the second wave materialized today in great fashion. I hope all of you got out to experience it because the Magnolias were dripping from the trees!

Our number one bird was Magnolia warbler with 124 new banded and another 558 other birds were banded. The highlights for the day were a beautiful female Golden-winged Warbler, a handsome male Blue-winged Warbler, and a second time ever captured on migration for us: Pine Siskin. For the day we netted 738 birds including recaptures. We caught a returning Indigo Bunting from last year. Take note of all the different looking Indigo Buntings out there when you are birding. They have some unique colorations of blues and browns. Some females are a chestnut coloration but others are more of a sand color.

Blue-winged Warbler male

Top 10 species:
Magnolia Warbler – 124
Tennessee Warbler – 58
Yellow Warbler – 46
American Redstart – 39
Gray Catbird – 34
Swainson’s Thrush – 30
Chestnut-sided Warbler – 24
Nashville Warbler – 23
Wilson’s Warbler – 21
Ovenbird -21

The cold front has made it here so tomorrow the birds will still be around for all to view! Lots of recaptures are in store for us. This year has been a good year with lots of volume of birds. We have exceeded our all time ever Nashville Warbler spring count of 383 as of this day.
Golden-winged Warbler female
Enjoy this female warbler. I believe there are some nice looking female warblers. They should get better looks from the bird watching community. Have a good day!


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