The Radar is Lit Up Tonight!

My friend Sue alerted me to the fact that the radar is really active tonight (actually 3 am Friday). I usually see returns like this in the spring but it sure looks like a huge movement of birds southward tonight. Most of the concentration appears to be in the southern Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois area.

Based on what has been around here lately I'm guessing that most of what is moving are the late warblers, especially Yellow-rumps which have been here in big numbers for the last week and sparrows. I have seen reports of birders seeing flocks of migrating sparrows with multiple species.

The forecast for my area of Minnesota is for cooler temps but precipitation should stay away for the next couple of days so we'll see how birding is this weekend. I know that the big influx in my yard has been of Dark eyed Juncos. The ones here now will move on and the winter residents won't be here for a few weeks yet.

Time to get out birding!

Sometimes when birds show up they show up in waves. Such was the case on Sunday when I opened my nets on a clear and warm day. The winds had been steadily out of the south for several days so I wasn't expecting lots of migrants but from the first net run it was obvious that there were birds everywhere. For the next 7 hours it was a bird bonanza. I hadn't had a day this good in a long time and there were so many birds in the nets I wished I had some help but alas I was a one man show. By the end of the session I had netted 54 individuals of 10 different species.

The most common species for the day were what I would expect in this area in early October. Yellow-rumped Warblers and White-throated Sparrows made up the bulk of the days catch. Yellow-rumps in the fall can be quite a challenge to age and sex but after seeing so many it became easier. Along with these species I banded 2 other warbler species and 3 other sparrow species. Below is a complete list for the day:
Nashville Warbler - 1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet - 1
Orange-crowned Warbler - 2
Lincoln's Sparrow - 1
Yellow-rumped Warbler - 29
Swamp Sparrow - 1
White-throated Sparrow - 16
Fox Sparrow - 1
Hairy Woodpecker - 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker - 1
This weekend is the regular banding session at the Lowry Nature Center in Carver Park Reserve near Victoria, MN. The weather is supposed to hold until then with no big fronts coming through but a gradual decline in daily high temperatures. If you would like to come out and help band birds we start right at 9 am. See you there!

Banding Programs This Weekend

Just a very short note to let folks know that this weekend we will be running 2 bird banding programs. On Saturday we will be holding the monthly program at Carver Park Reserve just outside of Victoria, MN from 9 - noon. This session is scheduled to be at the King Blind location down the road from the Auburn Lake boat launch.

On Sunday we will be holding the last fall banding session for the year at Ritter Farm Park in Lakeville, MN. This session runs from 9 - noon. Cost for participants 10+ is $2. Younger kids are free.

Come on out and say hi. Hopefully we will be very busy with southbound migrants.

September Migrants

We held our second banding session of the fall at Ritter Farm Park near Lakeville, MN yesterday. For early September is was unusually hot. We started the day in the upper 50s but very quickly got up into the 80s and we weren't sure how that might affect the days catch. To put it simply the birds were very cooperative. This Brown Thrasher was just one of the highlights of the day.


A big aim of our programs is to introduce kids to birds and show them how science is done in the field. We encourage kids of all ages to come out to watch and have some of them help us let the birds go. The thrasher made this young fellows day when it just sat there for about 30 seconds until it figured out it was free. This picture is of a memory that I hope this kid never forgets. When we wonder how to bring more young people into birding nothing tops something like this.


We only ran 3 nets for the program but we were busy from the start. Many of the birds were obvious migrants with a good number of young birds. This Purple Finch is a young bird with the last bit of yellow gape (edging of mouth) still visible at the base of the bill. We see PUFIs in migration but they nest north of us. Besides the visible characteristics that identify Purple Finches, we can always distinguish them from House Finches because PUFIs really bite!


The Northern Waterthrushes have been moving through for a couple of weeks and this one was netted in classic habitat, right along the edge of a wetland, skulking along low in the bushes. I even predicted this species for the day.


Finally, a preview of the next birds to come through in big numbers, the sparrows. We caught 3 species of sparrow including Song Sparrow, Field Sparrow and this Swamp Sparrow. Swamp Sparrow and Field Sparrow were the most common sparrow catch of the day.

Below are the totals for the day. The weather prediction for the next week is for a drastic change in temperatures. We are going from upper 80s for highs to barely reaching 60 degrees. We have 2 programs next weekend - Saturday at the Lowry Nature Center and Sunday is the final program at Ritter Farm this fall. With the change in conditions we may see a real change in species. Ya gotta love migration!

Totals for Sunday:

American Redstart - 1
Field Sparrow - 3
Common Yellowthroat - 3
American Goldfinch - 2
Northern Waterthrush - 1
Swamp Sparrow - 3
Purple Finch - 1
Red-eyed Vireo - 1
Song Sparrow - 1
Gray Catbird - 3
Brown Thrasher - 1

Total Individuals = 20
Total Species = 11

New Bird Species Discovered

I love the fact that the more we look at the world around us the more we see. This is something I try to impress on my students all the time. Well, someone has been looking more closely at a seabird from the Pacific and has found by appearance and by DNA analysis, there is a new species of shearwater called Bryan's Shearwater.

To read the whole story see the article from the Smithsonian's National Zoo press release.

Ya just gotta love science!

A Wave of Warblers

I had a chance to spend some time at my banding site for four days last week (Thursday - Sunday) and while the numbers weren't high the variety was exciting. I also netted a couple of birds that prompted the "What's the heck is this one?" reaction. The photos below are a selection from the 4 days. See if you can guess # 2 and #3 before you look at the label!


#1 This is one of my favorite fall warblers to catch. The Chestnut-sided Warbler has such a different look in fall migration that if you didn't know better you might think it's something else. I've seen these birds flitting through the woods on gray, rainy fall days and the color they display almost glows.


#2 This was the first of two tough IDs I had. It took a while to key it out but I was quite pleased to have figured it out. In the hand are a couple of characteristics that you might not see easily in the field. First, there is no white on the underside of the bird. It has yellow undertail coverts and no white spots on the tail. It also does not have dark legs.


#2 The thing that threw me at first was the white eye ring. Adults of this species don't have an eye ring. As I walked up to the net I thought this was a Nashville Warbler but, in fact, it is a young Mourning Warbler! Not a species we handle much anyway but this youngster really was a challenge.


#3 This was the second bird that made me scratch my head. My friend Mark was with me this day and he immediately recognized it as one of three fall warblers that are really tough to ID. We both take a bit of a perverse pleasure in catching a bird that's is not easy to ID. Part of it is that we know we probably haven't handled the species before and it gives us a chance to learn some of the more subtle characteristics that are only apparent in the hand.


#3 This adult, female Bay-breasted Warbler was the first of that species I have ever handled.


#4 A more typical warbler to catch during migration is this Wilson's Warbler. Large black-cap with quite a bit of olive green edging is something to look for in the fall.


#5 Common in the area during both breeding season and migration is this American Redstart. The only trick to banding these in the fall is to know that young males of the year look like an adult female. The glossy black and bright red feathers of the adult male take a couple of years to develop.


#6 Not a warbler but a species that we catch at the same time as the warblers are moving through here is the Red-eyed Vireo. All the REVIs that I've caught so far are young with brown, not red eyes.

Here's hoping the next banding session is just as much fun as this one.

Fall Migration is Revving Up.

Saturday morning found us at the Lowry Nature Center for our monthly banding session, but we were also anticipating the appearance of the first south bound migrants of the fall. Word from up in the northern part of the state was that the first flocks of warblers were showing up and with the winds out of the north we were hoping that some of those birds had made it this far already. Shorebirds have been moving for about a month now but seeing them is a matter of finding good habitat. It's been pretty dry the first part of this month.

We set nets in the usual lanes and and had a steady but not overwhelming number of captures. The only birds we banded that may be migrants are a couple of Least Flycatchers. All the other species caught are known to breed in the area. Here is a full list of the days catch:

Eastern Phoebe - 2
Trail's Flycatcher - 1
Least Flycatcher - 2
American Goldfinch - 1 (in spite of lots being around the banding site)
Black-capped Chickadee - 3 new, one retrap
Field Sparrow - 1
American Redstart - 1 retrap originally banded in spring 2009
White-breasted Nuthatch - 1
Downy Woodpecker - 1
Rose-breasted Grosbeak - 1
Northern Cardinal - 1
Gray Catbird - 1 new, 1 retrap

Total species = 12
Total individuals = 18

This week I hope to get out to a different site and do some banding. I had a Wilson's Warbler and a Canada Warbler in my apple tree Saturday evening so there is good stuff around. Now they just need to find my net. I was going to go out this morning but I spent yesterday afternoon hand clearing my net lanes with a weed whip and had a hard time rolling out of bed this morning. Complaints of an aging bander!