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Archived Postings

September 17, 2007 – September 23, 2007

Things have become very quiet at the migration monitoring station. That shouldn’t come as a surprise this late in September. With nightly temperatures dropping below freezing and with a little bit of snow, we can’t blame the neo-tropical migrants for leaving us. They have much warmer places to be. Only a small handful of yellow-rumped warblers, orange-crowned warblers, ruby-crowned kinglets and hermit thrush were encountered over the week. Sparrows were more abundant around the banding lab. Most sparrows have a shorter migration distance, wintering in the southern United States and Mexico, so they tend to pass through later than many wood-warblers. White-throated sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, and the odd Lincoln’s sparrow (which actually winters in Central America) were seen on most days. Dark-eyed juncos typically move through the area in larger numbers during the last half of September; they were the most commonly seen migrant during the week. The first American tree sparrow of the fall was captured late in the week. American tree sparrows are the definitive sign that fall songbird migration is at an end. They are the last songbird species we expect to see migrating through the area. The first one in the nets always brings about a sigh because that’s when you fully realize that another year of bird banding is just about to end. Even with the American tree sparrows proclaiming the end of another banding season, migration just does not come to a jarring halt when they show up. One morning the banding lab was overrun with a wide variety of sparrows. We had to pay attention because sparrows can cause grief; many people find identifying sparrows very difficult. But after staring at them for awhile, the differences between sparrows become easy to spot. If you stare at them for long enough you may actually develop a few favorites of your own. I just happened to catch my two favorite sparrows this week, both in the same day. The first was a clay-coloured sparrow. I like them because they are simply a good looking sparrow. This one was captured was fairly late in the season, they are much more abundant in late July and in early August. The second favorite was a fox sparrow. Fox sparrows are late fall migrants and a few are usually seen this time of year. They are a larger sparrow with a brilliant rusty and grey plumage. It is a rather long story why I have developed this special fondness for fox sparrows. The only part of the story I will share is that the first one I had ever captured had me saying, “bwah?????” Although the songbirds are slowing down and the songbird season is winding down, there are still northern saw-whet owls to prolong compulsion to band birds. This week marked the mid-way point of the owl banding season and the saw-whets were coming in steady all week long. Nightly captures averaged about 3 or 4 owls (which was about as many songbirds that were banded each day). Late in the week saw the best night of owl captures of the season so far with 13 banded. This night brought up the total saw-whets banded for the season to 68. There is still a full month of owl banding left lots of time for a pile more owls to hit the nets.

2010