Angela missed last week so she got an opportunity to get behind the table today. First bird up was a recaptured juvenile Northern Cardinal.
Soon afterwards, we caught an Eastern Phoebe right at dawn. Fairly early in the morning for flycatchers. This was Angela's first actual chance to band a new bird.
The fun part of getting into the banding mode is figuring out how to hold a live bird and get the mechanics down. She handled the Eastern Phoebe with care and navigated the pliers and applying the correct band to the bird's leg.
The newly banded Eastern Phoebe is positioned for a photo but it was not in the mood for a classic pose.
Then we had a spate of Regal Darners hitting the nets. All were extracted without injury.
The morning grew quiet for a while and then Christine made a call that she had an interesting bird at Net 6. It was a Ruby-crowned Kinglet! The first we have captured in nearly 2 years. For whatever reason, we have not had many Kinglets for the past two years. We hear a few, but they are just not here in numbers anymore. This is the month we should be catching several every Sunday according to records.
Orange-crowned Warblers have been seen during the morning, but hanging out near the lake. As we decided to close up, Christine found one in Net 5.
In the field, Orange-crowned Warblers look very drab and you cannot ID them too easily. In the hand you can see the crown on adult males a lot better.
We also point out that they have one of the most pointed bills in the warbler family. Nearly needle-like.
Our last banded Orange-crowned Warbler was 4 and a half years ago so this was a great end of the day. Megan got to help record the stats and then release the bird before we wrapped up for the morning.
The next fronts are pushing toward us and we may have some visitors from the North Shore Birding Festival. Bring on some more interesting birds!
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Next (planned) Banding Day: Sunday, January 19th.
All nets will be opened by 6:50 A.M.
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