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.