Monday's Results

An incredibly slow day of banding with only 10 new birds banded and 7 recaptured of 14 different species.  Moderately strong south winds prevented good migrating conditions, so I was not surprised by the low number of birds banded.  The highlight-of-the-day was an adult female Baltimore Oriole with an unusual bald spot on the top of her head.

    

Baltimore Oriole (After hatch-year, female)

Last year on October 1st, we had a capture rate of 79.7 birds/100 net-hours.  Compare that to our current capture rate of 58.7 birds/100 net-hour and we get a difference of about 20 birds/100 net-hours.  That translates into a decrease of about 100 birds per week from last year or about 700 birds behind where we were last year!  We have had a mild fall so far with only a couple of major cold fronts making it this far south.  Couple that with lots of days of unfavorable winds for an east coast banding station and you get the results I described above.  It just goes to show how seasonal weather patterns affect bird migration.

NEW BIRDS

1 Veery

3 Gray Catbird

1 Palm Warbler (Western)

1 Common Yellowthroat

1 Eastern Towhee

2 Northern Cardinal

1 Baltimore Oriole

 

RECAPTURES

1 Carolina Chickadee

1 Carolina Wren

1 House Wren

1 Gray Catbird

1 Black-throated Blue Warbler

1 Common Yellowthroat

1 Northern Cardinal

 

BANDING STATS

# of Birds Banded:  10

# of Recaptures:  7

# of Species:  14

Effort:  73.1 net-hours

Capture Rate:  23.3 birds/100 net-hours

# of Nets:  17