Monday, May 10, 2010

Northeast winds keep the birds in the area

After a busy weekend with International Migratory Bird Day celebration, the birds decided to stay for a while. No, the winds are not favorable for heading north. Check out www.facebook.com/bsbobird for the highlight at the Navarre banding station this weekend. They caught a male Cerulean Warbler while I was not there. It would figure.

Today we had 70 new birds with 58 recaptures. Nineteen warblers were seen or heard in the marsh including: Blue-winged, Golden-winged, Tennessee, Nashville, Yellow, Chestnut-sided, Magnolia, Black-throated Blue, Myrtle, Black-throated Green, Western Palm, Bay-breasted, Blackpoll, Black-and-white, American Redstart, Prothonotary, Ovenbird, Northern Waterthrush, and Common Yellowthroat. Of course the highlight was the female Golden-winged Warbler!
She is beautiful from the back as well!
Top 5 species:
Gray Catbird (GRCA)-8
Yellow Warbler (YWAR)-7
Northern Cardinal (NOCA)-5
Common Yellowthroat (COYE)-5
Red-winged Blackbird (RWBL)-4

We caught several Baltimore Oriole females today. Some would be considered males from a distance. Like this one with the dark head which is an ASY (after-second year) female.
It has no black pattern to the tail and it has dark brown feathers on the wings as opposed to having any black feathers on the wing. It is a tough call from a distance to tell the sex of this bird and sometimes differentiating between dark brown and black on the wing is not easy either. I have seen similar dilemmas with winter plumaged American Goldfinches with black wing feathers versus brown wings on females.

Tomorrow's forecast is for rain but if not a downpour the birds will be out. So if you don't mind a little precipitation get outside and enjoy. It will be warmer than it has been all weekend!

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