rain gives us a chance to survey bird boxes catch an uncommon northern bird and update blog

Nicole showing respect for the chompers on a rose breasted grosbeak

Thursday August 3rd  77 birds
Friday August 4 rained out and rained out  Saturday August 5th

Chris however got a chance to get the feeder nets up for about an hour when he had a sunny period while the marsh crew  was away and while the volunteers took a break and went into town. Chris being all alone  and taking car of a few chores at the marsh threw up  the nets and was rewarded by catching a phoebe.   After never having banded a phoebe this is the third year in a row we have managed to band one. We banded three in 2015, 2 last year and another yesterday. While common in the south they are rare in our area and are perhaps another harbinger of the change we are seeing in birds in the north due to climate change.

Patrick Sadler  and Jaden Briand surveying tree swallow boxes at the north cobalt sewage lagoon

The crew had the chance to get to the sewage lagoons and survey bird boxes  as the tree swallows have all but taken off south. While there are a few birds still flying around the lagoons most of them have already scooted south. The survey results were excellent and the tree swallows seem to have taken advantage of the peak in the mosquito and black fly season anecdotally i would say we were over an 85% occupancy rate of the boxes  and the nesting success rate was extremely high as well. We still have to survey the boxes at the marsh but I will post details regarding the swallow  success when we are done.

Jaden checking out a box at the Newliskeard sewage lagoon

Partick and jaden  putting up at box near kern public school one of 22 the kids there  monitor each spring

Banding totals  for Thursday August 3rd

1 downy woodpecker
5 alder flycatcher
1 least  flycatcher
2 common grackle
1 american goldfinch
5 white throated sparrow
5 song sparrow
11 swamp sparrow
3 rose breasted grosbeak
2 cedar waxwing
1 red eyed vireo
4 black and white warbler
4 nashville warbler
1 cape may warbler

3 yellow warbler
1 magnolia warbler
3 chestnut sided warbler
1 ovenbird
2 mourning warbler
3 common yellowthroat
1 wilson's warbler
11 american redstart
1 golden crowned kinglet
1 ruby crowned kinglet
1 veery
2 swainson thrush

77 birds  27 species

cedar waxwing the crew calls them a super hero

oven bird  often we only catch 1 or 2 a spring  however last year we banded 40 in the fall and so far we have banded 9 this fall

so great to have bander in charge Chris Sukha  back

first Wilson's warbler back of the fall perhaps our first migrant of the fall as the other birds we have been catching  are probably local breeders

Marsh Crew member Jaden Briand

Cape may warbler most likely another migrant

black and white  warbler

Marsh Volunteer from Newmarket Joanne Hamilton

Marsh intern Sarah Bonnett

Pete and Sarah with a male and female rosebreasted grosbeak

male Rose Breasted grosbeak

Nicole calm and poised as ever

between net checks 

crew member Andrew Aitchison  with our 5th mourning dove of the fall

The crew checking out  a young golden crowned kinglet

golden crowned kinglet left and ruby crowned kinglet right  we do not catch many Golden crowns in the spring but we make up for it in the fall this was out first of the season

Once again I have to thanks and praise such a great group of volunteers we would never be able to carry out this research without all of the help of such a great group of people. A reminder to the public that the marsh welcomes visitors Monday to Saturday from 8 to 11 if you would like to come out and see the birds for yourself. If you are not local the birds are on their way south and early indications are the migration is going to be good get ready to bird  and band. I will try to keep the blog going as often as I can to keep folks updated on how our migration monitoring is going. Bird is the word .!!