Another Impressive Day

WOW! Look at what we caught.

Another picture perfect day for being out and banding birds. Today we had a program at Ritter Farm Park in Lakeville Minnesota and between the visitors who came out to the bird festival and all the birds we handled today, it was a busy, busy time.

Most impressive was the fact that we caught 15 species of birds and a total of 47 individuals. One of the birds was a recapture Gray Catbird. The surprising catch of the day was 18 Tennessee Warblers. We were actually thrown a bit by the first couple because they seemed to have too much yellow in the face around the base of the bill. After going through the key and convincing ourselves that they really were TEWAs, we discovered that the yellow was in fact pollen from the many American Plum trees that are in bloom. The warblers are in the trees eating the nectar (bugs?) from the flowers. Almost every Tennessee had the same build up of pollen on their bill. Live and learn (and be amazed).

Below is a list of birds caught with the number of individuals of each in parentheses.
Tennessee Warbler (18)
American Redstart (1)
Common Yellowthroat (4)
Black and White Warbler (1)
Orange-crowned Warbler (2)
Yellow Warbler (6)
Yellow-rumped Warbler (2)
American Goldfinch (2)
White throated Sparrow (2)
Brown-headed Cowbird (2)
Cedar Waxwings (2)
White-breasted Nuthatch (1)
Rose-breasted Grosbeak (1)
Gray Catbird (2)
American Robin (1)

As always, lots more was seen than caught. Best non banded bird was the report of a Cerulean Warbler in the park that was seen after we were done for the day. With the wind out of the north I expected lots of these birds will stay for another day or two.

Grand total for the last 4 days = 111 birds of 31 species were banded. That's not bad...