One of the things I miss living on Cape Cod is the song of thrushes. The forest would be alive with the melodious songs of Wood Thrushes and Veerys as I walked through the spring woodlands in central Massachusetts. We do have breeding Hermit Thrushes though but I just don't hear them on a regular basis. We did catch a Hermit on 5 May, we tend to band more in the fall, a SY (second year) bird of unknown sex.
White-throated Sparrows tend to be an early spring migrant, the last ones coming through at our site on 8 May. We banded our first one for the season on 3 May.
This brightly colored one had an odd molt of the primary coverts with the outer 2 being retained symetrically, so I thought it may be a case of suspended molt.
White-throats have what is called a pseudolimit in their tertials and greater coverts which make the inner feathers appear to be replaced, when actually it is the normal appearance of these feathers.
Prairie Warblers, Gray Catbirds, and Common Yellowthroats all arrived on 3 May and the island was alive with bird song. Typically it is the older birds that arrive first and this ASY (after second year) Gray Catbird posed nicely for the camera. We normally band between 700-1,000 catbirds a season and some days it seems like all we see in our nets are catbirds and
Many goldfinches were still molting into their breeding plumage like this SY male.
Ron and Gretchen were in a teaching mode explaining to one of our newer volunteers, Cooper, the art of banding a catbird!
On the 5th we recaptured a pretty male Prairie Warbler that we originally banded last year as an adult. Prairies love open sandy habitats and their population does well breeding on Wing Island.
Compare him to a SY female we captured on the 6th. The duller gray facial pattern on her face is less distinct as is the streaking on her sides.
We recaptured another Gray Catbird on the 4th and found it was not one of our bands but was originally banded as a HY (hatch year) bird in 2011 at Ninigret Wildlife Refuge, RI! He/She was looking good guys!
We banded a bright SY year male Swamp Sparrow this day too.
He had molted his upper two tertial feathers (secondaries 8 &9) and retained s7 on both sides.
We banded a female Ruby-crowned Kinglet, another early migrant, on the 8th
The middle of the month brought our first Blue Jay
a female Rufous-sided Towhee,
a SY male Yellow Warbler,
and a beautifully plumaged male Myrtle (Yellow-rumped) Warbler.
The species below is often seen flying near the nets and many times perches right on the poles, but we hardly ever capture them , a female Tree Swallow. They have been fighting with House Sparrows who have been trying to take over their nest boxes, but surprisingly the Tree Swallows have so far won out!
We had a nice variety of birds on the 21st, the pictures are all of males, including a Magnolia Warbler,
another Ruby-throated Hummingbird,
and a Saltmarsh Sparrow, now a regular breeder in the salt marsh off Wing Island.
Calm SW winds brought more migrants in on the 25th. It was nearing the end of spring migration so we were happy to have them. This American Redstart male will not reach adult plumage until after he molts this year.
This was only the 3rd spring-banded Chestnut-sided Warbler we have had, a SY male.
and two Northern Waterthrushes.
We banded a Canada Warbler on the 26th,
with more variety on the 29th, a SY female Yellow-shafted Flicker
and two species of vireos. The vireos are easily told by the hook at the end of their upper mandible. First the Red-eyed Vireo, aptly named,
and our second only spring-banded Philadelphia Vireo.
To round out the end of the month, we had a Traill's Flycatcher (probable Willow),
a SY female Cedar Waxwing,
but the BEST bird of the day, of the spring, of the year? was a female Blackburnian Warbler! While I've banded this species other places, I've been waiting 15 years for one to show up on Wing Island! This species is hard to capture because they love to be high in the treetops. OK, so it wasn't a beautiful ASY male but we were pleased none the least!
We ended the month having banded 38 species, not the greatest amount for May but somewhat respectable for our site. Many thanks to the following people for helping out this month, in order of donated hours:
Ronald Kielb, Corey Accardo, Gretchen Putonen, Cooper Crose, Jo-Anna Ghadban, Yianni Laskaris, Claire Revekant, Judith Bruce, Kaiti Titherington, Lauren Johnson, and Tanya- sorry Tanya never got your last name!
The following is a list of birds seen, heard, or banded during the month of May:
Total birds: 517 Total species: 84
Total species netted birds: 38 Birds/100 net-hours: 33
| Common Loon | |
| Double-crested Cormorant | |
| Green Heron | |
| Brant | |
| Canada Goose | |
| American Black Duck | |
| Mallard | |
| Turkey Vulture | |
| Osprey | |
| Northern Harrier | |
| Red-tailed Hawk | |
| Black-bellied Plover | |
| Greater Yellowlegs | |
| Willet | |
| Sanderling | |
| Dunlin | |
| American Woodcock | |
| Laughing Gull | |
| Ring-billed Gull | |
| Herring Gull | |
| Great Black-backed Gull | |
| Mourning Dove | |
| Great Horned Owl | |
| Ruby-throated Hummingbird | 3 new |
| Belted Kingfisher | |
| Red-bellied Woodpecker | |
| Downy Woodpecker | 1 recap; 1 unbanded |
| Hairy Woodpecker | |
| Yellow-shafted Flicker | 1 new |
| Acadian Flycatcher | |
| Traill's Flycatcher | 1 new |
| Eastern Phoebe | |
| Great Crested Flycatcher | |
| Eastern Kingbird | |
| Tree Swallow | 1 new |
| Barn Swallow | |
| Blue Jay | 4 new; 1 unbanded |
| American Crow | |
| Fish Crow | |
| Black-capped Chickadee | 5 new; 33 recaps; 1 unbanded |
| Tufted Titmouse | 3 new |
| White-breasted Nuthatch | 1 recap |
| Carolina Wren | 1 new |
| Ruby-crowned Kinglet | 1 new |
| Eastern Bluebird | |
| Hermit Thrush | 1 new |
| American Robin | |
| Gray Catbird | 101 new; 54 recaps; 5 unbanded |
| Northern Mockingbird | |
| Cedar Waxwing | 1 new |
| European Starling | |
| White-eyed Vireo | 1 new |
| Philadelphia Vireo | 1 new |
| Red-eyed Vireo | 2 new |
| Northern Parula | |
| Yellow Warbler | 6 new |
| Chestnut-sided Warbler | 1 new |
| Magnolia Warbler | 5 new |
| Myrtle (Yellow-rumped) Warbler | 1 new |
| Blackburnian Warbler | 1 new |
| Pine Warbler | 2 new; 1 recap |
| Prairie Warbler | 10 new; 17 recaps |
| Black-and-white Warbler | |
| American Redstart | 2 new |
| Ovenbird | |
| Northern Waterthrush | |
| Common Yellowthroat | 43 new; 78 recaps; 1 unbanded |
| Canada Warbler | 1 new |
| Scarlet Tanager | |
| Northern Cardinal | 5 new; 2 recaps; 2 unbanded |
| Eastern Towhee | 2 new; 1 recap; 1 unbanded |
| Chipping Sparrow | |
| Field Sparrow | |
| Saltmarsh Sparrow | 1 new |
| Song Sparrow | 11 new; 20 recaps; 1 unbanded |
| Swamp Sparrow | 2 new |
| White-throated Sparrow | 7 new |
| Red-winged Blackbird | |
| Common Grackle | |
| Brown-headed Cowbird | 1 new |
| Baltimore Oriole | |
| House Finch | 1 new |
| American Goldfinch | 36 new; 20 recaps |
| House Sparrow |
