The last day of spring migration season brings a Connecticut Warbler!

Today was the last day for spring migration monitoring and first day for the Navarre Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship (M.A.P.S.). The MAPS banding station has 10 mist nets and is about 100 yards north on the same ridge as the migration station.

What a day when you can see a Connecticut Warbler, let alone in the month of June!
(Take a look at her eye ring! Tiny little feathers make up that eye ring. How amazing!)

The winds overnight were out of the southwest which made the catch better than previous days. There were still some Swainson’s Thrushes to come through. Three Swainson’s Thrushes on the migration station and two were captured on the MAPS station. They are not giving up the race yet, but what do you think about a White-throated Sparrow in NW Ohio in June?! Along with these were the trio of Canada, Wilson’s, and Mourning Warblers. You never know birds what may be straggling north. Navarre Migration top 6 species:
Traill’s Flycatcher – 8
Yellow Warbler – 5
Red-winged Blackbird – 5
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher – 4
Wilson’s Warbler -3
Indigo Bunting -3

Navarre MAPS top 5 species:

Red-winged Blackbird - 6

Common Grackle - 4

Gray Catbird - 3

Traill's Flycatcher - 2

Swainson's Thrush -2

As I close out the spring migration portion of this blog for the year, I want to take my hat off to all the volunteers who spent hours of running, walking, working on the Navarre research project. It has been a great spring with this being the second highest for the station in all of its history. We could not have done it without all of you! This spring was a steady volume of birds for several weeks and volunteers were willing to pitch in when needed. I can’t say enough to thank you! It is not as easy as it looks and until you experience it, you don’t really know why I call it work. Extracting the birds from the mist nets, transporting to the banding station, banding, measuring their wing, checkign for energetic condition, weighing and getting them out of the door as quickly and safely as possible takes teamwork! It was a great spring and I now look forward to the fall season to see how well the birds did on the breeding grounds. In the mean time I will be conducting a couple MAPS projects so I will intermittently be posting on those days. Enjoy the summer and study up for your fall confusing warblers! It will be here faster than you know!