Gray Catbird being banded by Lauren
As the weather this mor
ning (2 May) is not conducive to banding, we thought we’d take the time to catch up on the blog! *** (We did make it out to Erie Bluffs later this morning)***
Saturday (30 April) was actually sunny for once, which was a pleasant change. We also had quite a few visitors and volunteers out at Niagara boat launch, which, along with the weather, made the atmosphere a bit different from what we’re used to, as the majority of conversations did not revolve around how frozen various appendages were becoming. Somehow, we managed to find other things to talk about, focusing mainly on cool birds and the ways in which they can seriously maim you, (think eagles, hawks, great blue herons) and food. We talk about food a lot.
We caught quite a few interesting birds, including some very cute warblers: a male hooded warbler, a blue-winged warbler, and a black-and-white warbler. The ruby-crowned kinglet was also neat, and we caught the first American goldfinch of the season. Amy took some excellent pictures, shown here.
We also had a few recaptures, or birds that had already been banded. Some of these recaps were birds we had banded that day (there was one particular catbird that was caught at least 4 times, which had to be just as annoying for the bird as it was for us). One particularly interesting recap was another gray catbird, but this one had an older band, one with only 8 numbers, instead of the 9 that are standard currently. This means that the bird was banded before we started banding here, or before 2007. We won’t know exactly when it was banded until we can look up the number, but how cool!
Another of the recaps was a brown-headed cowbird, our first of the season. Two others were a pair of cardinals, with sequential band numbers. We think they may be a pair that were banded together last year. Cardinals are notoriously difficult to handle, and these weren’t any different. They enjoy grabbing tiny pinches of finger skin, preferably cuticle, and clamping down extremely tightly with their stout seed-cracking bills. Bills that have adapted to deal with tough seeds have no problems with skin, though they usually don’t draw blood. The female was not terribly difficult, but the male managed to get the net tangled around his tongue, which made getting him out of the net more difficult than normal.
Here’s a list of the days total catch: ruby-crowned kinglet; blue-winged warbler; American goldfinch; black-and-white warbler; slate-colored junco; hooded warbler; swamp sparrow; white-throated sparrow (6); song sparrow (2); hermit thrush (2); eastern towhee; gray catbird (6, including recaps); American robin (3) brown thrasher; brown-headed cowbird; and northern cardinal (2).
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