Howdy all,
Today was a rocking day at the banding station, and I knew it as soon as I
got to the station this morning before sunrise. As I was opening nets, there
were birds flushing from every bush, weed, and tree. By the end of the day we
had banded 246, a great way to end September. Although we had lots of birds,
it really was not as diverse as I would have expected it to be. We caught 24
species, which is great, but I would have thought 30 would been more
expected. Anyway, we did have a few "fancy" birds today. The highlight bird of
the
day was a hatch year EASTERN WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW. Not a species we catch
here
every year. We also caught our fourth PHILADELPHIA VIREO today, which ties a
15 year high. Other than those two, the other species we quite expected. It
was nice to finally see a jump up in BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLER numbers. And
as expected for this time of year, our first big wave of GRAY CATBIRDS.
I expect tomorrow to be rather decent although not near as big as today. I
am hopeful at least. Time will only tell. I would assume catbirds will be
around in good numbers. And hopefully that Kirtlands Warbler I have dreamt
about
catching here!! Ok that's a stretch but why not dream big!
Here are the totals for the day 9/30:
American Redstart 22
Black-throated Blue Warbler 38 including a good number of adults
Northern Parula 2
Magnolia Warbler 6
Black-and-white Warbler 15 puts our season total over 100 so far
(a great year)
Common Yellowthroat 23
Palm Warbler 7 4 western race, 3 yellow
Ovenbird 9
Northern Waterthrush 1 been low all season
Yellow-breasted Chat 1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 1
Eastern Wood-Pewee 1
Eastern Phoebe 1
House Wren 5
White-eyed Vireo 1
Philadelphia Vireo 1
Red-eyed Vireo 5
Traill's Flycatcher 2 willow or alder
Indigo Bunting 6
Gray-cheeked Thrush 2
Veery 3
White-crowned Sparrow 1 first of the season and
seemingly early
Gray Catbird 91 they are here!
Brown Thrasher 2
TOTAL ------------------------------- 246
Highest one day total for the season so far. Surprisingly, no Yellow-rumped
Warblers. I was expecting a few today. Maybe in the next few days. Also we had
no "less common" warblers today which was a bit odd.
Big thunderstorm this afternoon here. Bet we got 2" in about 30 minutes.
Seems we couldn't buy a rain drop earlier this year, now we can't get a day
with
out rain! Go figure.
Cheers,
Jethro Runco
Coastal Virginia Wildlife Observatory
_www.cvwo.org_ (http://www.cvwo.org)
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