Good Mourning in the afternoon

Once again we were back at Thickson Woods on May 28th we had three nets up and the results were astounding to us, two of us working and a LOT of birds every single net run. No time really to take pictures except for two particular birds.

The first was a female Mourning Warbler



We were pretty excited by her, up until her we were catching many, many Maggies (Magnolia Warblers) in fact I'm sure if she hadn't showed up this day would have been known as Maggie Day ;D I think we banded at least 20 Magnolias! Just to make it interesting there were a few Canada Warblers in there as well.



Check out how much white is on the throat



I'm not going to post the male Mourning Warbler yet, I'm going to save him for the next blog entry!

Thick with Birds and People

I am pretty, oh so pretty
Originally uploaded by makeupanid

We worked at Thickson Woods on the holiday Monday of the Victoria Day weekend and were visited by many people who came to us through Project CHIRP a songbird habitat initiative. Lots of people participated in putting up the nets, going on net runs and mainly observing the banding process. We had a fairly steady stream of birds but we caught our best birds in the last net run of the day (or should I say night?) it was getting pretty late, but we still hadn't heard the owl ;)

This Northern Waterthrush was the last bird we caught in the net-good looking isn't it?



The second last bird that we caught was the one that caused us the most trouble it was a Flycatcher......an Empidonax but what kind? It wouldn't honour us with a song while in hand. And it had a very, very green back-see



But after much measuring of the primaries, and using formulas to figure it out P10-P6, etc...., it was decided it was a Willow Flycatcher.

A birder came along to watch and we held it up and said what is it? And he laughed and said a flycatcher? Make it sing!

Orange Delight

Thickson Woods during Spring Migration is an amazing place to be, you can easily count 75-100 species there.

We banded 51 birds the other day and we only had three nets up! They were filling consistently with a variety of birds, Warblers of course (Canada, Magnolia, Northern Parula, Nashville, Ovenbird) and some others, Orioles, American Robin, Veery, Downy Woodpecker. We only had 3 recaps, two American Goldfinches and one Black Capped Chickadee. A nice surprise was this warbler an Orange Crowned Warbler (aptly named...no?) Vermivora celata



We had quite the audience of photographers as well and I wouldn't be surprised to see photos of this one all over the web ;D Even though it was the birds that were the main attraction I had a taste of what being a movie star with a million big lenses pointed at you was like. :D Hey if any of you guys/ladies are reading this please comment with a link to your photos we'd love to see them.

I actually did not get that many shots of this guy as I was busy scribing.




Then when I was ready,
the bird had
had enough
The attitude was more like
"No More Pictures!" and of
course we do not put
any undue stress on
the birds, so that was
it for our modelling session
















But here's the requisite wing shot, I think that with all the shots I've been taking for our personal "database" I could publish a book focusing on the primaries,
secondaries, rects, greater and lesser coverts! It's handy to go back and study these shots later to confirm your observations.



Oh and I forgot to thank you sonja for your comment on my bird photos, so I'll do it here, thanks!

Happy International Migratory Bird Day!

Happy International Migratory Bird Day!
Originally uploaded by makeupanid.

Nashville Warbler banded at Thickson Woods Tuesday May 8, 2007

Here's a link for some info on climate change and migratory birds

Happy International Migratory Bird Day Everyone!

Sparrow Day

On Tuesday May 8, we worked at Thickson Woods, we had several volunteers, birds and visitors, in all we were very, very busy. We expected to catch several species of Warblers and we did get quite a few but the real stars of the day were Sparrows, seven species in total. We actually caught four Lincoln's Sparrows a little surprising!




Sometimes we were a little too busy, I did not get photos of all seven species, but I did get a few of them-here is the Swamp and the White Throated Sparrow that we banded




I think calling it "Sparrow Day" was a good assessment!