Sunday, October 18, 2015

A Wave of Buntings

The Indigo Bunting wave arrived right after sunrise today just as expected. There may be more days in the future that we catch the same or more but this is the first big push for them to head South.

Indigo Bunting

The bags were stacking up quickly and it took a little over an hour to get through the first morning rush. We will take it!

Bags

House Wrens are still arriving in good numbers and we captured 5 of them this morning.

House Wren

No surprise, either, that Common Yellowthroats are representing on a nice cool day. Finally. Dry feet!

Common Yellowthroat

Last week we caught just a few female Indigo Buntings but now the males are also arriving sporting more of their name sake color.

Indigo Bunting

Our 2nd Black-and-White Warbler in as many weeks is always a nice surprise.

Black-and-White Warbler

Western Palm Warblers are also showing up in good numbers this weekend and we managed to band two of them today.

Palm Warbler

Even though the area is getting a break from the rain, there is still enough moisture around to make many species of fungus grow quite well.

Mushrooms

Brown Thrashers are still moving about and getting jewelry from us.

Brown Thrasher

Before she had to leave for the day, Becki got to band her related bird. A Belted Kingfisher (their alpha-numeric code is BEKI) made our 4th ever banded here.

Belted Kingfisher

All previous birds were females but this one was a male.

Belted Kingfisher

Once the data for the Belted Kingfisher was recorded Palmer got the privilege of releasing him along the river.

Belted Kingfisher

Did we mention that we caught a lot of Indigo Buntings today?

Indigo Bunting

We only netted a single White-eyed Vireo this Sunday but it, like all the previous birds this month, was loaded with fat put on for migration.

White-eyed Vireo

Somehow we still catch new Northern Cardinals. Thought we had banded all the locals by now.

Northern Cardinal

We captured 3 Ovenbirds including this recapture from a couple of years ago.

Ovenbird

If not for other commitments we could have stayed longer but all good things must come to an end. On the way home looking for arriving ducks, Andrew spotted a pair of Sandhill Cranes a couple miles from the banding site. Not totally rare around here but still a surprise.

Sandhill Crane

We had an excellent day. The birds were plentiful, the weather was perfect, and the company a joy. Hopefully we can wind down October with another fantastic Sunday.
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Next (planned) Banding Days: Sunday, October 25th.
All nets will be opened by 7:00 A.M.

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