yellow headed blackbird perhaps the bird of the year!!! banded may 5th

A beautiful adult male 

In november of 2014 Chris Sukaha told me that he heard the chip note just once of a  northern cardinal at the marsh. We decided to put up another feeder net and  20 minutes later the marsh had its first ever cardinal banded.  So it was with great excitement that Chris came back yellow headed blackbird to the birdhouse and told he had heard a  yellow headed blackbird calling . This time it took more than 20 minutes and instead of a net the yellow headed blackbird found its way into our brand new J trap.  Lucky we have a J trap!!!!  The other lucky thing is that Nicole and i had to go and help get ready for  the marsh doing the bar fundraiser for the annual ducks unlimited dinner.  Good thing that we still had Chris Sukha and Barb Baginski to carry on banding while we were gone or we would never have caught the yellow headed

This is the second ever yellow headed we have ever caught at the marsh and after the first one i never thought we would ever see a yellow headed ever again. the first one was banded way back in 2000 and was caught at the feeder nets. it was the only yellow headed banded that year and this may very well prove to be the same there are many years that no one ever gets a chance to band one in Ontario. Yellow headed blackbirds are common to the west and are abundant in marshes particularly in manitoba and saskatchewan. The range maps  have a distinct line west of the great lakes. many places in manitoba consider them as common as we have red winged blackbirds. it must be an incredible sight to see a marsh alive with yellow headed  blackbirds although their call is nowhere as nice as our beautiful red winged  konkaree!!!
 I thought it was of great interest that the day we banded the yellow headed that there was a sighting of a yellow headed blackbird at point pelee in southern ontario.

Barb was the one who found him in the j trap. She told me all she saw was a flash of yellow and started to run! Glad she did  the last yellow headed to my knowledge was banded at long point  bird observatory in 2015 and they banded the only one in ontario. In  comparison  long point banded 956 red winged blackbirds and there were  1641 banded across the province. Everyone celebrates the sighting let alone banding of a yellow headed blackbird. Well done Chris and barb, Chris Sukah was the one that banded the bird and joins a select group of ontario banders to be so lucky. Now i cannot wait for Chris to say , Murph I think I heard a .......