May 9th, 2006

Ruthven

Mist over the river and Wild Turkeys calling at first light - as well as a lot of other speciesl But not a lot of 'new' species. We have yet to see many warblers. Long distance migrants have yet to evolve to a point where they can take advantage of the earlier springs....and the food they offer....like freshly emerged mosquitoes. Yes, our national bird is beginning to make its presence felt for another year. Slough forests are good breeding habitat for them and the weather conditions are bringing them out. Not much compensation for the lack of warblers...at least not to me.

We banded 32 today: 2 HOWR, 2 GRCA, 2 NAWA, 8 YWAR, 2 COYE, 1 NOCA, 1 WTSP, 1 EWCS, 2 RWBL, 1 BHCO, 10 AMGO.

Retrapped 17: 1 HAWO, 1 WBNU, 1 BRWA, 4 YWAR, 1 NOCA, 2 RBGR, 1 SOSP, 3 EWCS, 3 AMGO.

There were a couple of interesting retraps:
-AMGO: banded May '04
-BRWA: banded as an AHY July '05
-YWAR: banded as a SY May '05
-WBNU: banded April 2000
-RBGR: banded as a SY May 2000 (and has gone back and forth between Ruthven
and Latin America 7 times!)

A male Purple Martin continues to hang around the new martin houses - keep your fingers crossed!

New species for the season: Chimney Swift (2 spiralling around the Mansion chimney)

Rick

Photos (all taken by John Millman, I believe):

Brewster's Warbler (this one was a retrap, as mentioned above).


Today's Brewster's Warbler again.


Hairy Woodpecker


Yellow Warblers, female on left and male on right (note the male has reddish breast streaks).


An American Goldfinch


A Gray Catbird


Selkirk

This morning's activity was about 1/2 of yesterday's. Like yesterday, bird movement and song just about ceased after 11 am.

Simone Immler from the University of Sheffield spent her 2nd day at Selkirk. Dr. Immler is collecting bird sperm from fresh bird droppings. So far in 2 days she has collected around 60 specimens at Selkirk. She collected somewhere around 150 at Powdermill in Pa. over the previous couple of weeks and will be moving on to Long Point in a week or so.

Banded: BLJA 1, RCKI 1, VEER 5, SWTH 1, GRCA 2, YWAR 2, CSWA 1, MAWA 1, AMRE 1, OVEN 11, COYE 1, RBGR 1, FISP 1, LISP 7, WTSP 3, EWCS 4, RWBL 2, BHCO 1, AMGO 6 = 52

Selkirk may make 2000 birds banded this spring sometime this week. STD 1937

John