Monday, April 20, 2009

A Disappointing Saturday

I had such high hopes for our banding session on Saturday... warm temps and lots of newly arrived migrants but when you work in the natural world, things don't always pan out. While we had a good day of seeing birds, the winds were a constant problem and it was still early enough in the season that none of the vegetation was "greening up" yet. Put those two factors together and our day was filled with chickadees and red-winged blackbirds. The totals are as follows:

Black-capped Chickadees - 6 new and 4 retraps
American Goldfinch - 2 new
Chipping Sparrow - 2 new
White-breasted Nuthatch - 1 new and 1 retrap
Red-winged Blackbird - 8 new

Total Species = 5
Total Individuals = 24

The plan was to try banding on Sunday at my school until I woke up to 40 degrees and rain. The temps are supposed to be warming over the week so NEXT weekend those migrants better be ready to wear some new jewelry.

1 comment:

Jessica said...

Looks like a great day to me. Birding happens that way though. Best of luck this weekend!


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