Sunday, May 2, 2010

Spring on Cape Cod




Friday, 23 April - Sunday 25 April 2010

It's always great to get back to banding again after the winter's hiatus. We had a fairly good show of birds for our first week of banding this spring season with a total of 63 birds in all. It was a foggy start on Friday with a few quick sprinkles and quite windy the following two days. Wind is always an issue in spring on Cape Cod. We recaptured a few old friends, a 9 year old Blue Jay, a cardinal and chickadee both 8 years old, a Song Sparrow and American Goldfinch 7 years old and a Northern Cardinal who is at least 6 years old. A Ruby-crowned Kinglet was happily singing all around the banding table each day, but we didn't capture him. A Prairie Warbler showed up on the 24th, but he also eluded us! It is always nice to get thrushes and we recaptured a Hermit Thrush on Sunday, banded last year as a hatch-year bird.
Total captured birds: 63 Total captured species: 11
Many thanks to those who helped this week: Judith Bruce, Kate Iaquinto, Carolyn Kennedy, and Gretchen Putonen. Below is a list of birds seen, heard or banded. Numbers indicated captured birds:

Common Loon
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Canada Goose
American Black Duck
Mallard
Osprey
Northern Harrier
Black-bellied Plover
Greater Yellowlegs
American Woodcock
Laughing Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Mourning Dove
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Yellow-shafted Flicker- 1
Eastern Phoebe
Tree Swallow
Blue Jay- 1
American Crow
Fish Crow
Black-capped Chickadee- 21
Tufted Titmouse- 2
Carolina Wren- 3
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Hermit Thrush- 1
European Starling
Pine Warbler- 3
Prairie Warbler
Northern Cardinal- 5
Eastern Towhee- 1
Song Sparrow- 10
White-throated Sparrow
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
American Goldfinch- 15
House Sparrow














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