Howdy all,
Well the Kiptopeke banding station returned to old form today! And about time!
It was a beautiful day to be on the eastern shore and the birds were VERY
abundant! To sum it all up, we had the nets open for only an hour and a half
and we caught more birds than we knew what to do with! They all came at once.
The top capture today was Northern Parula! A very unexpected number! To tell
you how unexpected, here is a few numbers to ponder. In 2001 only 19 NOPAs were
caught. Last year 29. Since 1996, the highest number of NOPAs caught in one
season was 52. Today alone we caught 45!!!!! How fun is that!!!
Other impressive numbers include 156 birds captured on the first net run alone!
Up until today, the highest number banded in one day was 107! Today we ended
up banding 236 birds at the days end. Why the low total? All the birds came at
once and we had to close the nets from 8:00am until 11:30 so we could catch up!
The afternoon was much slower.
Another surprise was that we caught NO Yellow-rumped Warblers!
We had a total of 31 species including 17 species of warblers!!!
Other highlights were the capture of Cape May, Hooded, and Blackburnian
Warblers!! All very, very beautiful!!
FUN FUN FUN!!!!!
So here are the totals for the day! Enjoy!
Warblers:
N. Parula 45
Redstart 42
Magnolia 17
C. Yellowthroat 10
Black-throated Blue 10
Black-and-white 5
Blackpoll 3
Western Palm 2
Yellow Palm 2
Chestnut-sided 2
Ovenbird 2
Prairie 1
Pine 1
Black-throated Green 1
Blackburnian 1
Hooded 1
Cape May 1
N. Waterthrush 1
Others:
Alder Flycatcher 1
House Wren 2
Eastern Phoebe 1
Swamp Sparrow 1
Indigo Bunting 7
Red-eyed Vireo 12
Gray-cheeked Thrush 11
Swainson's Thrush 10
Veery 4
Wood Thrush 1
Scarlet Tanager 2
Gray Catbird 30
Brown Thrasher 1
Sharp-shinned Hawk 1
Total 236 31 Species
As you can see, it was a busy, but very fun day. A lot of visitors were around
today enjoying what makes the Kiptopeke banding station one of the best banding
stations in North America! With a good outlook for tomorrow again, I do hope a
lot of visitors stop by again tomorrow!
Hope to see you all at the station!!!
Cheers,
Jethro Runco
Head Songbird Bander
Coastal Virginia Wildlife Observatory
You are subscribed to VA-BIRD. To post to this mailing list, simply send email
to va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx. To unsubscribe, send email to
va-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field.
