Someone forgot to charge the battery for the point-and-shoot camera so today was a chance to test the quality of our cell phones. Chris assisted and got this shot of our first Ovenbird of the morning. Not too bad.
Shortly afterward, Andrew would have to sit for most of the morning as the bags began to pile up on the line.
Adult Common Yellowthroat males are finally arriving after the females and juvenile males.
Black-throated Blue Warblers are still moving through. Our first capture was an adult female.
A couple yards away, a male Black-throated Blue Warbler was brought in. Perhaps the pair were traveling together?
Veerys came in last week and it was nice to get a Gray-cheeked Thrush early in the day. We typically do not get too many of this species.
House Wrens are bubbling around the area and coming through the lanes. In fact, we saw a few escaping as we approached to extract them. At least we got one.
We also had a couple of escaped Carolina Wrens but this new juvenile ended up banded.
Then, what? Just when we were happy with one Gray-cheeked Thrush we open another bag to find another! This one was caught near the same spot as the first one. They were both juveniles and both LOADED with fat as they headed down to their Wintering grounds.
We were wondering where our migrating White-eyed Vireos were last week. That is when we usually start getting them. Today they made it back. The first captured was a juvenile, noted by the dark eyes, and loaded with fat like the thrushes.
Swainson's Thrushes are the 3rd in line when catching thrushes. Today we got our first of the season. So tan.
Common Yellowthroat males were still filing through. Time to reload the 0 size bands!
Another Ovenbird followed. This one was a little older and showing brighter orange in the head stripe.
A new male Black-throated Blue Warbler was caught near the end of the day. We began to notice the markings on the bird and recalled that we use to spend a lot of time commenting on this in the past at Wekiwa Springs.
"Male Black-throated Blue Warblers nesting in the Appalachian Mountains have black streaks on their backs, not solid blue like other populations, and might be a distinct subspecies.", according to the American Bird Conservancy website. This is an Appalachian version.
We totaled 4 White-eyed Vireos. Their are birds of this species that can be found at other times of the year but these are definitely migrants with all the fat deposits noted on them.
By the way, now that the water has receded a bit, we located the school observation dock. It is wedged under a tree that fell across the river more than a year ago.
Our final bird of the day was a nice Prairie Warbler. We always love a lot of yellow in the nets. If only we could open Net 21... Yellow Warblers are seen there right now. More on Net 21 later.
We will still be jumping around the rain tomorrow. Hope we can get through the entire morning.
______________________________________
Next (planned) Banding Day: Saturday & Sunday, October 7th and October 8th.
All nets will be opened by 6:50 A.M.
No comments:
Post a Comment