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Archived Postings

September 5, 2005 – September 11, 2005

September 5 to September 11, 2005 September banding is great! It is generally a slower banding time, but there are plenty of surprises. There are some amazing birds that are just not expected and there is always the chance of having some very busy banding days. This week was a great example of that. The week started off slow, with about 10 birds banded a day. Things looked very dull until the 7th when a varied thrush was captured; only the second banding record for the LSLBO. Later that day a parasitic jaeger was seen far out of the lake harassing the terns. Both these species are not uncommon to the area, but are still great sightings. September weather played havoc with banding attempts for the next few days until the 10th. There must have been a shift in the weather patterns because it turned out to be a great birding day. 24 birds were banded and the first sandhill cranes (although it was only a flock of four) and greater white-fronted geese (a flock of 80) were seen at the lab. Migration was in full swing again on the 11th. Birds where everywhere. 42 birds were banded, including some species that were thought to have been long past, like the northern waterthrush, American redstarts, and Philadelphia vireos. Two new species for the year were banded that day: a red-breasted nuthatch, one of my personal favorites, and a brown creeper. Despite the great birds near the end of the week, the American tree sparrows showed up too. The first ones were spotted on the 10th, I tried to ignore them, convincing myself that they were another species of sparrow. My fears were confirmed later that day when one ended up in the nets. American tree sparrows are usually one of the last songbird species to pass through the area. They usually show up the last week of September signaling the end of another migration monitoring year. I hope that these few are just really early and there are more migrants still to come. Northern saw-whet owl banding is picking up pace from nightly captures to hourly captures. By the end of the week a total of 15 saw-whets have been banded. Owls, like other raptor species, do not moult all their flight feathers every year, so multiple generations of feathers can exist on older birds, and that is the key to aging the birds. It can be very difficult to see the extent of fading and wear that the separate the different generations under normal light. The underwing feathers of owls have a pinkish hue that shows up under black-light. Over time, this hue fades in older feathers. Using a black-light makes aging saw-whets much easier, plus it looks extremely cool.

2010