Bird calls filled the predawn sky this morning as we were opening the nets. That is always a good sign of a very busy day of banding! Despite a wind shortened day we banded 143 new birds and had 5 recaptures of 14 different species. Yellow-rumped Warblers dominated with 123 banded which will probably be the trend for the rest of the fall season. The biggest surprise was when a Virginia Rail was brought back to the banding table! Rails are marsh birds and not a group one would expect to find in a mist net in the scrub. We are surrounded by marsh but the mist net where this bird was captured was far from the marsh. It must have been migrating last night and dropped in during the darkness and was on its way to find more suitable rail-like habitat when it encountered our net. Rails are one of my favorite groups of birds. I studied Yellow Rails in graduate school so it was a real treat for me to get a rail today!
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| Virginia Rail |
We also had a couple of interesting recaptures today. The first was a Yellow-rumped Warbler that was originally banded as an adult on 11/01/10. The second recap, another Yellow-rumped Warbler, was wearing a band that did not match any number sequence that belongs to me. Therefore, barring any error I made while reading the band number, this bird may have been banded by another bander this year. It may take a little while to confirm the origin of this band but when I do, I will follow-up in a later post!
NEW BIRDS
1 Virginia Rail
1 Eastern Phoebe
1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet
8 Hermit Thrush
2 American Robin
123 Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)
1 Palm Warbler (Western)
1 Common Yellowthroat
1 Song Sparrow
1 Swamp Sparrow
1 White-throated Sparrow
1 Indigo Bunting
1 Painted Bunting
RECAPTURES
1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet
1 Northern Mockingbird
3 Yellow-rumped Warbler
BANDING STATS
# of Birds Banded: 143
# of Recaptures: 5
# of Species: 14
Effort: 51.4 net-hours
Capture Rate: 288.2 birds/100 net-hours
# of Nets: 17 (several closed early due to wind; all nets shut down around 10:00am)
