Howdy all,
After a solid two weeks of hoping and praying for a cool front to bring down
some birds, I stepped out of the house this morning and boy did it feel
great! And better yet, it was calm. So I had some hopes that today was going
to
be our first real push of birds through the area. By the first net run, we
knew it was going to be!
There were a lot of birds around the banding station up until 10:30 or so.
After that, it slowed way down.
By the end of the day, we had banded a total of 77 birds of 15 species. Much
better!
By far the most common migrant and capture in the area was AMERICAN
REDSTARTS. But there was a nice mix of birds. Some of our better captures
included,
not one but two CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLERS, a BALTIMORE ORIOLE, 2 BLUE GROSBEAKS
(including a brilliant blue adult male), and a GRASSHOPPER SPARROW. I am
going to post some of the pictures I took today on the blog I have been
running,
so check them out at _www.cvwo.org_ (http://www.cvwo.org) .
All in all, a very nice day for both banding and birding.
Also, on the way out of the park, I stopped and talked to one of the park
employees and saw a BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER in a tree with a lot of PINE
WARBLERS.
I don't see many of them here on the shore so that was the cherry on top!
Here are the totals 9/1:
American Redstart 34
Black-and-white Warbler 3
Black-throated Blue Warbler 3
Chestnut-sided Warbler 2 first of the season
Common Yellowthroat 6
Ovenbird 2
Northern Waterthrush 3
Traill's Flycatcher 4 expected more
Red-eyed Vireo 2
Veery 5
Blue Grosbeak 2 1 was a beautiful adult male
Grasshopper Sparrow 1 I love them!! first of the season
Baltimore Oriole 1 first of the season
Northern Mockingbird 8 finally caught a few
Brown Thrasher 1 first of the season
TOTAL -------------------------------- 77 if my math is right
We had a good number of visitors this morning and I think they were all
happy with the birds and species, not to mention the great weather! Hope you
all
had a great Labor Day!
Cheers,
Jethro Runco
head bander
Coastal Virginia Wildlife Observatory
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