Annual IBBA Meeting

Hello from Port Clinton, Ohio! This weekend is the annual meeting of the Inland Bird Banding Association and this year we're being hosted by Black Swamp Bird Observatory.



The morning was at the observatory banding migrants that are moving along the southern shore of Lake Erie. Being significantly south of my home means I can see some birds here that haven't been around home for a while. Turkey Vultures were soaring over head and the woods were full of White-throated Sparrows and Yellow-rumped Warblers.



While staring down at the birds in hand we had a flock of 27 Snow Geese fly over along with a Peregrine Falcon and 3 Bald Eagles. The wind was pretty brisk but the numbers were consistent. The volunteers ended up banding 10 species while we watched.



To help us warm up, there was a bird aging and sexing quiz using museum specimens inside the observatory building. If you think birds in the hand can be tough you should try stiff, stuffed birds that have their labels covered.



It was great to have a chance to stand around and watch all these very experienced people teach each other the little hints on aging and sexing that only come with handling thousands of birds as a bander. One of the banders here has banded in excess of 250,000 birds! and I was excited when I passed 1000...



The afternoon was the paper session and with the breadth of the presentations I was kept busy taking notes. The research that is going on out there is really impressive.

Tomorrow morning is a trip out to the lake front to do some shorebird banding. Hopefully I'll have more cool photos tomorrow.

Birds moving in the eastern U.S.

I was checking to see what might be going on with migration now that the big low pressure system has moved through and thing are getting back to normal. Well it looks like there is a lot of movement in the eastern U.S. south of the Great Lakes. The middle of the country is pretty quiet.



This image from CONUS shows lots of birds taking advantage of winds out of the north/northwest. It warmed up a bit today in places that had a hard freeze last night. I'm in Ohio for the annual Inland Bird Banders Association meeting and this movement might bode well for the banding demos tomorrow morning at Black Swamp Bird Observatory. I'm really excited about the possibility of seeing some shorebird banding on Sunday.

The weather sounds like it should cooperate. If the birds cooperate, I'll post some photos!

Migration in South Texas?

A quick peek at the radar tonight (11:35 pm CST) shows what appears to be a lot of migratory activity in south Texas down into Mexico. Anyone down that way seeing lots of birds?



The extremely strong low pressure system moving across the middle of the country has winds gusting locally (Minnesota) in the 50+ mph category. This might cause some unusual birds to show up in unusual places. Take a look around after a strong front passes and you'll never know what might turn up.

Late Migrants

We had great hopes for the banding session held on Saturday Oct.16th and the start was not disappointing. A clear sky and cool temperatures were perfect for the morning. We set just 2 nets until we were sure how many volunteers would be there and the first net check found 14 birds in one net. A flock of Dark-eyed Juncos kept us busy and we thought we'd have a banner day until...the wind started.


Our net lanes were out in exposed areas and they looked like the spinnaker on a sailboat. Fortunately we did catch a few more birds like this beautiful Fox Sparrow. A really "chunky" bird it was big even for a Fox Sparrow.



We also had our first American Tree Sparrow of the fall. It was hanging out with the flock of juncos that hit the nets early. This is one of our favorite birds during our winter banding sessions. The numbers we catch each year has declined over the years. I don't know if it is habitat loss or habitat change but we have noticed this drop in birds present for a few years now.



This ATSP was a young bird and showed a really nice molt limit on its wings. Notice the nice bright greater coverts and the contrast with the primary coverts and the median coverts. It's not always this obvious but it was nice to be able to show this characteristic to all the visitors.

In spite of the quick decline in conditions we still totaled 18 birds and 4 species. We'll keep putting nets out this month as much as we can but the weather in October is unpredictable. We may keep banding into November if things are nice and the birds are around.

You Guys are Good

Young sparrows can be tough but this one seems to be a pretty typical hatch year Swamp Sparrow. It's always a treat to walk up to the net and see something that makes you say hmmm. What a fun time of year to learn how to ID some of those birds that we don't see all the time.



As the weather stays unseasonably warm and dry the migration might stall out until the next cold front. Middle of next week we should have a whole new set of birds without "bracelets".

Sparrow Time

Late September and early October are the transition time in this area between the warbler migration and the sparrow influx. We'll have some of the late warblers for a while yet such as Yellow-rumped Warblers but the main group we will deal with for the next few weeks are the "little brown birds". The fellow below was caught on Oct 3rd and caused us to scratch our heads a bit.



We did finally figure out what we had but it took putting all of our heads together and then we still spent a lot of time proposing possibilities. Before I label this individual I'd like to see what everyone else thinks.

I'll be banding again this weekend and the weather looks like it will cooperate. The banding season is getting down to the last month so every weekend is important.