Special Demo for Lake Lotus

We were invited to do a special demonstration event inside the Lake Lotus Park today like we would for Earth Day and it was scheduled for a select group that signed up through the Altamonte site. Later in the day, we were joined by our friends at the Avian Reconditioning Center to show their raptors. Being that it was just the beginning of migration we were happy to have the few birds we did capture today.

Birds were calling all over the property as we set nets starting at 7 AM but they quickly quieted down not too much later. There was 30 or so participants signed up, but half showed early on. Andrew began the tour with them to show how we set nets in hopes of catching birds.



Fortunately, as we neared the end of the net lane, an Ovenbird darted from the brush and hit the net in front of us so it could be shown how gentle the nets are to the birds. It was our 2nd Ovenbird of the season.



The crowd got to take shots of the process of banding as we processed the Ovenbird and had one of the kids release it.



The air was quickly filled with calls of Cicadas and the bird calls vanished. We continued our rounds and finally caught a Red-Eyed Vireo in the same net as the Ovenbird. Most of the crowd was listening to the presentation from ARC, but they were alerted to the new bird and they came out for the viewing.



Red-Eyed Vireos do breed in the park and we have been hearing them for a weeks. This one seems to be a juvenile judging by the brownish irises.



One of our visitors seems keen to be helping out in the future, and she got to release the Vireo after we got all of our data.



We have been watching the calendar carefully for the past few weeks and we know that there are certain species that arrive at certain times of the year. Just as we began to wonder if they would show up, we caught a Veery on the very week they typically arrive.



Most of our visitors had departed by this time so our only audience were the rangers. Ranger Patrick got the opportunity to release the Veery.



The day was getting late and the participants were departing so we began to shut down around 1 PM. We began at the far end of the nets and by the time we got to the front of the nets we had captured a new migrant. A male Black-throated Blue Warbler. A great end to the day!



The ARC crew was also winding down and one of their group wandered out to see what we had brought back and got to release our new Black-throated Blue Warbler. We had to warn her to keep her raptors away from our tiny potential meals before she could participate! Nice to see Gordon, the Great-horned Owl, again after all these years.



Back to home next week. Hurricanes are streaming all over the place but seem to be out of our way this year.
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Next (planned) Banding Day: Sunday, September 16th.
All nets will be opened by 6:40 A.M.