Really Quiet, But an Interesting Recovery

Well, that was a quiet day. We could hear birds all around during the morning but there were not many moving through the area. Just hanging out and feeding. We only captured a Hermit Thrush and a Gray Catbird.

The interesting thing is the Catbird. We first banded this bird as a young bird on February, 6th, 2011. What makes that important is that we often recapture Catbirds that stay in the area for the Winter and through the Spring but we have never recaptured a bird in a later year! We always wonder why. We have banded thousands of Catbirds but they never have returned that we know of. Until today.

With little else to do, besides checking the nets, we did some bird watching and looked for anything to photograph. The only striking view was a Balsam Apple fruit against the vegetation down near the lake.



After banding, Andrew returned to check out the Hooded Mergansers at Maitland Center. There were nine birds there as opposed to last week's five.



There are now two males and seven females.



The males are always a wonder to behold.



Weather patterns might shift by next weekend and hopefully that will get the birds moving around a bit more.
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Next (planned) Banding Day: Sunday, December 9th.
All nets will be opened by 6:30 A.M.