3rd RSHA

Today we caught our third Red-shouldered Hawk of the season.  This is not it.  This is our second, which was a nice adult male.

OCWA

Our one and only Orange-crowned! 79th species of the season.

Chat

My lack of updates is astounding, but my computer chooses to only come to life about once a week these days, so until the new one arrives, enjoy this chat! Things are slowing down a bit, peak migration has passed, but school groups are still rolling through and Myrtle Warblers continue to dominate net runs, often surprising us on a seemingly slow day with 10-15 in a one net.

Peeps on PI

Shorebirds foraging on Plum Island early this fall.

Ruddy Turnstone

A few White-rumped Sandpipers with Semipalmated Sandpipers

White-rumped Sandpiper

Babiest

A surprisingly young Cedar Waxwing for how late we caught it (a couple of weeks ago).

Swamp Sparrow

Golden-winged

So it looks like we did miss our potential big days of banding over the weekend...sad, but who wants to band hundreds of Myrtle Warblers anyway?  Things have been slow this week birdwise (too windy), but we've had quite a few fourth graders come in and out with their classes, which can be entertaining.  Most kids have no clue what any of the birds are, they almost always guess chickadee for any bird you're holding.  Sometimes two kids will both, out loud, guess chickadee.  One kid did ID a Hermit Thrush, which naturally left us a little speechless, mostly because he is doomed to be a true nerd if he knows that already.

Our real excitement of the week was this bird, a young male Golden-winged Warbler.  Not a common bird in Massachusetts any time of year and one of very few (<5?) caught here in the last twenty years.

This bird is very closely related to the Blue-winged Warbler.

Unfortunately, with habitat loss, hybridization with Blue-winged Warblers and being outcompeted by their more aggressive relatives, Golden-winged Warblers are in steep decline and one of the more threatened warblers in North America.

Along with orioles and other thin-billed warblers, Golden-winged Warblers will actively open their bills, as seen here, when you try squeezing it shut.  As you might guess, this proves to be a very useful reflex if you are foraging in the canopy looking for insects and encounter curled up leaves.

Golden-crown

About a week and a half ago we had a little influx of kinglets and Brown Creepers, this week it looks to be all about Myrtle Warblers, but we may have missed the majority of them over the weekend...

Rained out

We got rained out early today.  It was a good morning, a nice push of warblers including Wilson's, Blackpoll, Redstart, Myrtle, and a surprising Hooded!  We also caught our first Cooper's.  We have been expecting big numbers recently, but they just haven't been coming.  The weather has been a bit too warm, hopefully this weekend does not bring a cold front, in which case we may miss a big portion of the birds since we aren't banding :(

LISP

BT Blue

Two different female Black-throated Blue Warblers.

White-eyed Vireo!

We've have a few of these so far, one of which has stuck around for over a week, building up fat reserves for a long flight south.