Five First of the Seasons!

It was a busy day at the banding station with a 194 new birds banded and 22 birds recaptured made up of 29 species!  North West winds along the east coast last night made conditions ideal for migration into our area.  The highlights of our day included five First of the Seasons.      

To start off are First of the Seasons we had a pair of Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers.  The pair was comprised of a hatch year male and a second year female.  Sapsuckers can be sexed based of the color of their throats.  Males will have at least a few red feathers on the throat whereas females will have an all-white throat.

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (hatch year male and second year female)

Our next First of the Season was a Hermit Thrush.  We are now up to five species of thrushes for the season including Veery, Swainson ’s Thrush, Gray-cheeked Thrush, Hermit Thrush and Wood Thrush.  

Hermit Thrush (hatch year)

We also had our first Ruby-crowned Kinglet of season.  This is one of our latest dates for a first of the Season Ruby-crowned Kinglet.  For the last two years, kinglets have shown up during the last week of September but their migration does not usually peak until the end of October. 

The last two First of the Seasons were species of warblers.  The first was an Orange-crowned Warbler.  The individual we had was a hatch year female, who lacked any orange in her crown.  The next species was our good old feathered friend, the Yellow-rumped Warbler.  Over the next couple weeks, yellow-rumps will begin to flood the area and we will likely band close to thousand if not more of them by the end of the season.      

Orange-crowned Warbler (hatch year, female)

       

NEW BIRDS

1 Common Ground-Dove

1 Yellow-billed Cuckoo

2 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

1 Eastern Phoebe

2 White-eyed Vireo

2 Red-eyed Vireo  

2 House Wren

1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet

1 Gray-cheeked Thrush 

3 Swainson's Thrush 

1 Hermit Thrush 

96 Gray Catbird 

1 Brown Thrasher 

2 Black and White Warbler 

2 Tennessee Warbler 

1 Orange-crowned Warbler 

30 Common Yellowthroat 

7 American Redstart

1 Cape May Warbler 

2 Northern Parula 

3 Magnolia Warbler

8 Black-throated Blue Warbler 
13 Western Palm Warbler

1 Yellow-rumped Warbler 

1 Prairie Warbler 

1 Scarlet Tanager 

1 Northern Cardinal 

6 Indigo Bunting

1 Painted Bunting

RECAPTURES

1 Common Ground-Dove 

1 White-eyed Vireo 

1 House Wren 

15 Gray Catbird 

4 Northern Cardinal

BANDING STATS 

# of New Birds: 194 

# of Recaptures: 22 

# of Species: 29 

Effort: 170.2 net-hours 

Capture Rate: 126.6 birds/100 net hours 

# of Nets: 23 

BANDING STAFF 

Aaron Given 

Mattie VandenBoom 

Matt Zak 

William Oakley 

Libby Natola