A Slow Day, but Hope for the Future

After a short delay due to rain early this morning, we had a relatively slow day at the banding station. In just under 5 hours we banded 30 new birds and had 13 recaptures of 15 different species. Shifting winds tonight, and a cold front moving through early next week, give reason to hope for higher numbers and some new migrant species arriving soon. Common Yellowthroats, our most numerous species this season, seem to have mostly moved out, but Yellow-rumped Warblers are surely increasing, with a flock of at least a dozen moving through the banding site this morning, 3 of which we were able to catch and band.



'Myrtle' Yellow-rumped Warbler (Hatch-year female)
 

An unfortunate event happen on Thursday - a mammalian predator (presumably a bobcat) killed a male Northern Cardinal that was in one of the nets.  All that remained was some red feathers and an 8-inch hole in the net.  Today, Mattie and Vicki alerted me to a pile of scat on one of the banding trails that had some red feathers in it.  As expected, the scat was from a bobcat and was less than 100 yards from where the cardinal was killed on Thursday.  I searched through the scat and sure enough I found a band (#2561-95161).  This was from a cardinal that was banded earlier this fall.

If you look closely you can see the band inside the yellow circle.

 

 

-Josh

NEW BIRDS
1 White-eyed Vireo
1 Red-eyed Vireo
3 House Wren
1 Gray-cheeked Thrush
9 Gray Catbird
2 Black-throated Blue Warbler
3 Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)
2 Palm Warbler (Western)
1 Back-and-white Warbler
1 American Redstart
4 Common Yellowthroat
1 Eastern Towhee
1 Northern Cardinal

RECAPTURES
1 Downy Woodpecker
6 Gray Catbirds
2 Common Yellowthroats
3 Northern Cardinals
1 Painted Bunting

BANDING STATS
# of Birds Banded: 30
# of Recaptures: 13
# of Species: 15
Effort: 94.0 net-hours
Capture Rate: 45.7 birds/100 net-hours
# of Nets: 20