Well, there's not too much to report regarding birds and banding... we only went out banding 2 days this week because of all the rainy weather. We spent Wednesday at Frye's Landing, hoping that the weather would send a lot of migrants through, but had a normal day as far as numbers. We did, however, catch 2 Ruby-crowned Kinglets, the first kinglets we've caught this fall! We also caught our first Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (see above picture) on Wednesday, and at Erie Bluffs on Thursday, we caught our first Dark-eyed Junco. The junco and kinglets are birds that will winter here, and so are a sign of the end of fall. Surprisingly, we also caught our first Black-throated Green Warbler on Wednesday, though we'd been seeing them fly around Presque Isle earlier in the fall. They must be good at avoiding nets....
Exciting news: we have started our attempt at catching and banding Northern Saw-whet Owls! We're doing this in accordance with Project Owlnet, a group that bands saw-whets across the U.S. and Canada. If you are interested in learning more about Project Owlnet, check out their website at: http://www.projectowlnet.org/
The trick to catching owls is to lure them in using a recorded owl call, aka the "Owl Party Mix". It's a hoot! We set up the regular mist-nets, starting at dusk and leaving them open until sometime around midnight. Saw-whet owls are bigger than most Passerines, and usually banders would use a larger mesh size net. Instead of doing this, we're using our normal nets, but spacing the trammel lines closer together. We call this the "pocket effect". Theoretically, the owls will fly into the nets and get stuck in the pocket. We didn't have luck catching any owls on our first night out, but we have high hopes for future nights.
For the Saw-whets that we will catch, we'll be taking similar measurements as we do for the songbirds: species, age, natural wing chord, weight, fat, and sex. Additionally, we'll measure the flattened wing chord, tail length, bill length, eye color, and we'll describe each bird's molt. Interesting! Keep your fingers crossed for us!
More to come once the weather clears up...
New species this week:
Frye's Landing:
9/30/09- Black-throated Green Warbler, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Erie Bluffs:
10/1/09- Dark-eyed Junco, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, House Wren, Song Sparrow
First Dark-eyed Junco of the season
A nice-looking adult female Indigo Bunting we caught at Erie Bluffs
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