The Migration Continues

I've had the great fortune to be able to get out into the field quite a bit in the last week. Radar returns at night have shown very heavy migration movement lately and the birds in the nets back that up.

New species for the fall are showing up in numbers. Ovenbird, Swainson's Thrush, Red-eyed Vireo and all the flycatchers have been increasing in abundance this week.

 Mourning warblers have been fun to work on daily. This male looks like he has a bit of attitude but he was calm during processing.

Northern Waterthrush is a pretty common migrant in spring and fall. Caught this one in a forest/grassland edge, not near water which is more the case usually.

Sparrows move through this part of Minnesota mostly in the month of October but we do see some early movers like this Lincoln's Sparrow.

The highlight of Sunday's banding was not one but two Yellow-throated Vireos. In spite of the cool temps and off and on rain we had some nice birds but none was as exciting as this bird.

The weather for the next 2-3 days looks to be poor for field work. Rain and wind are predicted until Saturday. Another glitch in the system is that the National Weather Service Doppler Radar in Chanhassen, MN has be shut down for maintenance (they're replacing the radars base). Not sure we'll be able to check night migration for a week or so. Might have to go outside and just listen.

Fall Migration is Ramping Up

Had a chance to spend 4 of the last 5 days banding out at one of my sites and boy was it fun. Thursday the 29th was sunny, warm and windy so I only caught one bird before I bagged it and went home. Friday was better with 6 birds for the day. Saturday was perfect as far as conditions go. It had the 3 Cs of banding: cloudy, calm and cool. My friend Amber was there to help and we end the day with 30 birds of 14 species including 5 species of warbler. Took Sunday off and headed back out this morning. Not as busy as Saturday but we (help from Amber  Chris and Laurie) did get 12 birds. We also had some nice flyovers from things like Common Nighthawks (~40), American White Pelicans, and any number of migrating songbirds that weren't low enough to hit our nets.

Here are a few pictures from the weekend:

 We don't handle a lot of Mourning Warblers usually but did get both this male and the female below. It's always fun to walk up to the net and see lots of yellow.

 Ageing these birds can be a bit tricky so we tend to spend a little more time with them than some of our regular captures like chickadees and catbirds.

 A common summer resident around here is the Blue-winged Warbler and we do catch a few of these both during migration and breeding season.

 A very common summer resident is the American Redstart. This male has just molted in its plumage for the winter.

While I was away from the banding site I caught a photo this visitor on my trail camera that monitors the site. A small set of antlers still in velvet will being changing in the next couple of months.