Big Day: 180 Birds Banded!

The first "real" cold front of season brought us a lot of birds this morning.  We banded 180 new birds and had 7 recaptures of 23 different species.  As usual for this time of year, Common Yellowthroats dominated the nets with 127 of them banded.  We had several first of seasons including:  Mourning Dove, Gray Catbird, Indigo Bunting, and Baltimore Oriole.  Both the Gray Catbird and Indigo Buntings seemed a little early to me at first but after looking back at last year, we captured the first Gray Catbird on 9/15/12 and the first Indigo Bunting on 9/13/12.  However, the peak dates for Gray Catbirds and Indigo Buntings are  much later in the season.  Other highlights of the day included at Worm-eating Warbler, two Northern Parulas, and a Great Crested Flycatcher. 

A big kudos goes out to the banding team (Mattie, Josh, Claire, and Vicki) for doing a great job handling all these birds!     

Great Crested Flycatcher (HY, sex unknown)

These Northern Parula are both males.  The one on left is an adult (AHY) and the one on the right is a juvenile (HY).  We were able to sex the HY based on the presence of the some red feathers on the upper breast, which unfortunately is not visible in the photo.  Notice how much more blue edging there is on the wing feathers of the AHY compared to the HY.  



Northern Parula (AHY male - left, HY male - right)

This HY male Baltimore Oriole was not very cooperative and would not pose for a photo.  Orioles can be sexed based on size with males being noticeably bigger (in the hand) than females.  A wing chord measurement can usually separate the sexes.     

- Aaron



Baltimore Oriole (HY, male)

NEW BIRDS
1 Mourning Dove
1 Common Ground-Dove
2 "Traill's" Flycatcher
1 Great Crested Flycatcher
6 White-eyed Vireo
8 Red-eyed Vireo
1 Carolina Wren
1 Veery
1 Gray Catbird
2 Northern Parula
1 Yellow Warbler
3 Black-throated Blue Warbler
12 Prairie Warbler
1 Black-and-white Warbler
2 American Redstart
1 Worm-eating Warbler
127 Common Yellowthroat
2 Northern Waterthrush
3 Indigo Bunting
2 Painted Bunting
2 Baltimore Oriole

RECAPTURES
2 White-eyed Vireo
1 Northern Mockingbird
1 Prairie Warbler
2 Painted Bunting
1 Northern Cardinal

BANDING STATS
# of Banded Birds:  180
# of Recaptures:  7
# of Species:  23
Effort:  122.0 net-hours
Capture Rate:  153.3 birds/100 net-hours
# of Nets:  20