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Archived Postings

July 23, 2007 – July 29, 2007

Fall migration is starting to pick up at the LSLBO. Banding numbers jumped slightly as more migrants began moving through the area. We are about three weeks into fall migration and have just passed the 500 mark for the total number of birds banded. 264 birds were banded over the past week, which nicely helped in reaching that 500 mark. Even with activity picking up, banding still seems a little slow. Banding over 100 birds in a day is not uncommon at this time of year, and so far our busiest day has been only 67. American redstarts, ovenbirds, black-and-white warblers, yellow warblers, and yellow-rumped warblers remained the top species banded. However, Swainson’s thrushes were starting to show up in the nets in larger numbers indicating that they are starting their migratory passage. The competition for top species is becoming a little heated. Visual migration has been a little slower, we’ve only had one day with a heavy passage of migrants. Most of the birds observed during the migration counts were those listed in our top banded category. However, they were joined by rose-breasted grosbeaks, tree swallows, chipping sparrows, Tennessee warblers, blackbirds, and evening grosbeaks. During a typical migration the top five banded species make up about half of the total birds banded. We often talk about these top species as the highlights of fall banding, but there is so much more that goes on. So far this fall we have banded 38 different species. For some birds, like the brown creeper, we will only capture one or two every fall and perhaps only a dozen of a species like the Wilson’s warbler. Every once and awhile you’ll capture a bird that you’re not expecting at all. The question remains, what is that species going to be this fall? There still hasn’t been anything overly unexpected up to this point, but we have had some uncommon birds in the nets. We have captured a palm warbler, a blackpoll warbler, a couple bay-breasted warblers, and few Cape May warblers. These uncommon birds do provide us with a nice little break from banding 20 American redstarts in a row. They also provide some challenges to our day, mostly because we are somewhat unfamiliar with their plumage variations. Cape May warblers, blackpoll warblers and bay-breasted warblers do provide some interesting challenges for identification. The problem is that in the fall they are either in juvenile plumage or in their winter plumage, neither offers much in the way of striking features. So, to get by this, we are forced to be somewhat creative in the features we are seeing. For example, bay-breasted warblers and blackpoll warblers have similar winter plumages, but they can be easily differentiated by the colour of their legs. Blackpoll warblers have black legs and bay-breasted warblers are blue. Cape May warblers can be confused with warblers like the black-throated green warbler. As easy way to figure this out is the extent of the white tail markings on the outermost tail feathers. Yes, being banders gives us an advantage of being able to use identification markers that would be very difficult to find with the bird is darting around in the crown of a willow tree.

2010