That's all, folks!

Sadly, the fall 2009 banding season has come to an end. We had a great season, with many different bird species. We've completed our fall banding newsletter, which will be posted online soon. It has a summary of all the birds banded this fall, as well as other interesting tidbits.

Our last day of banding was October 29th, because the 30th and 31st had poor weather. We had a nice treat on the 29th though-- we caught and banded an American Woodcock! It's not too often that mist-nets set up to catch songbirds will catch a bird like this. Here's a picture:




Banding will continue at Presque Isle and Erie Bluffs this spring, starting in April. We appreciated all the help of the volunteers this fall, and hope you all return to help the new banders in the spring.

A final note: Andrea and Linnea gave an oral presentation yesterday at the Regional Science Symposium, held at the Tom Ridge Environmental Center. We talked about the ticks we collected from banded birds, and an ongoing study of the ticks and Lyme disease being carried out by Yale University. The talk went well, and we enjoyed listening to other presentations for the rest of the day and part of today.