Midsummer Birds

1-16 August
I started the month doing some hummingbird banding in my backyard capturing a few hummers. One was a young male who hadn’t started his molt yet. Young males have streaked throats before filling in with red gorget feathers. Notice the buff edged body feathers, a good indicator of age. In the hand you can see grooves on the side of the bill that will gradually wear off with age, but you need a good set of magnifiers to see them!

Another hatch year male captured ten days later was further along in its molt.

The nets during the first two weeks of August have been full of birds. Surprisingly we captured no American Goldfinches, one of the more common birds in our mist nets. They are one of our latest nesters and I assume they are busy sitting on eggs.

On August 2nd we captured 90 birds of 18 species, two of those being our first Great Crested Flycatchers for the year. Both were hatch year birds. They constantly clap their bills together to produce a SNAP type noise and are the largest flycatcher that we handle.

They were beginning to molt in yellow feathers on their undersides.

Cinnamon-edged coloring is present on their rump, wing and tail feathers.

Occasionally during the course of net checking we’ll notice a huge flock of starlings headed for one of our nets. “NO!” we silently pray, hoping they will elude getting caught. Luckily we only caught four hatch years today from a large flock that was visible flying around our meadow nets. It isn’t very often that I capture a picture of a starling NOT in this pose as you’ve seen in previous pictures:

They were in various stages of their first prebasic molt. Their feathers are stunning even if some consider them trash birds due to their non-native status.

Eye color can be a key to sex, with the male being dark brown and a yellow ring surrounds the iris in the female.

Male

Female

Flickers rarely get caught because they are so large and tend to bounce out of a mist net. They are extremely vocal in the hand screeching so loudly they actually hurt our ears! We captured a hatch year male today.

These are hefty birds and weigh at least 10x what a chickadee weighs, barely fitting on our scale. Notice the beautiful yellow coloring to the shafts of their wings and tails. Their western counterparts have red coloration in place of the yellow. Here is the flicker getting weighed which takes only a few seconds.

We’ve had plenty of Baltimore Orioles these past two weeks both in our nets and in my hummingbird trap at my home. Below is an adult male looking quite fresh as he finishes up his annual molt.

They scoff down hummingbird nectar so fast I’m constantly filling the feeders. Orioles flock together in large groups this time of year. This adult female has black spots on her back and head.

This young male oriole was especially bright from munching on Tartarian honeysuckle berries.

The best bird of the day from Thursday August 5th was a beautifully plumaged adult male Blue-winged Warbler just finishing up his molt. Besides insects, he may have been munching on the same berries as the oriole above with his orange tinged feathers.

We had a good variety of birds on Saturday, Aug 7th with 20 species banded and we handled a whopping 53 catbirds. Our first hatch year kingbirds appeared

and numerous young towhees.

Before their first pre-basic molt we can sex hatch year towhees by their tail color, black in males

and brown in females.

We also captured another adult Ovenbird looking a bit ratty going through its annual molt

and our first White-breasted Nuthatch for the year, a hatch year male.

The combination of black, white, and bluish-gray feathers is so pretty isn’t it? While there is no shortage of these nuthatches, we don’t capture them very often.

Also making an appearance on Saturday was a young House Wren

and a first year female Hairy Woodpecker who was extremely uncooperative getting her picture taken. The best I could do was a bit blurry photo

and my fingers paid dearly for the effort! OUCH!

On Wednesday, August 11th, I banded in North Eastham in the National Seashore. I had a contract job with a group of researchers studying the reasons behind the lower incidence of Lyme disease in the south compared with other parts of the country. They needed a bander who could mist net birds and remove ticks. Five nets were set up in one of their plots where they are also sampling mammals, rodents, and reptiles (reptiles mainly in other parts of the country). We met before dawn and opened nets as the sun rose. They had set up nets the night before in the woods and we caught nothing for the first two hours. After scouting out the area I suggested we move a couple of nets to a more appropriate area, more shrubby than woodsy, and from then on we had birds every net round. We did resort to a bit of clowning around we were so happy to finally get some birds.

Eric releasing a Hermit Thrush

Eric is a wildlife biologist contracted to help them with the other wildlife they are sampling. Two students from the University of Rhode Island learned about bird banding and helped to band birds and remove ticks. Here is Justin releasing a Blue Jay.

Both Justin and Amanda took turns looking for ticks on the birds:

We handled fourteen birds for the morning with half of those being hatch year Hermit Thrushes.

Most of them were molting body feathers. Notice the hole under the bird’s eye- that is actually the ear!

The reddish tail is characteristic of Hermit Thrushes, who breed on Cape Cod. They have one of the most beautiful songs of all our songbirds.

Amanda found an interesting, brilliantly colored spider she shared with us found in the leaf litter. Apparently it is called an Arrow-shaped Micrathena (female).

I had an enjoyable morning with a fun group of people. Seated is Jean Tsao, the lead investigator from the University of Michigan and Howard Ginsberg, another researcher and professor at URI is standing next to her.

The following day I banded another hatch year Red-eyed Vireo back in Brewster at the banding station.

I also captured the Gray Catbird with the grossly deformed bill I spoke about in my last post. It weighed only a gram less than last time, but felt emaciated in my hand.

We netted more Northern Waterthrushes on Saturday, Aug 14th.

Our first American Redstart for the year showed up today too, a hatch year female.

Below is a comparison of eye color in an adult Northern Mockingbird that we caught today. Adults have a yellowish tinge to the iris. She also had a slightly deformed bill.

The young mockingbirds have a grayish coloration to their iris which will gradually turn yellow as they age.

The best bird on Saturday was a hatch year Mourning Warbler of unknown sex, but probably female. She was just passing through on her southerly migration journey to build up some fat reserves. She had some fat on her, but will probably stick around for a few days before moving on.

Monday, August 16th proved questionable weather-wise, but Judith and I gave it a try only opening enough nets that we could handle in case the rain come in faster than expected. Luckily with technology today I’m able to keep an eye on the radar on my phone and we had a successful morning with just a wee bit of rain that didn’t amount to anything and had a good number of birds for our effort- 63. We had nothing new in the way of birds but Judith did catch something other than a bird. She quickly called me on the two-way radio so I could run down and take a picture. It was a Long-tailed Weasel! Judith remembers a buffy coloring to the undersides, which would indicate weasel rather than mink. All I can say is good thing Gretchen wasn't there!

As usual I’m grateful to the volunteers who helped out at different times throughout the last two weeks- Gretchen Putonen, Judith Bruce, Carolyn Kennedy, Roger Mongold, and the Johnson family- Sheryl and her daughters, Lauren and Kristen. The following birds were seen, heard, or captured during 1 – 16 August. Numbers reflect captured birds only.

Total birds: 466 (+ 14 Eastham birds)          Total species: 57


Total banded species: 31                             Birds/100 net-hours: 96


Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Green Heron
Osprey
Black-bellied Plover
Least Sandpiper
Laughing Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Mourning Dove
Black-billed Cuckoo
Great Horned Owl
Ruby-throated Hummingbird -20
Belted Kingfisher
Downy Woodpecker -5
Hairy Woodpecker -2
Yellow-shafted Flicker -2
Traill's Flycatcher -1
Eastern Phoebe -12
Great Crested Flycatcher -4
Eastern Kingbird -9
Tree Swallow
Barn Swallow
Blue Jay -1  (in Eastham)
American Crow
Fish Crow
Black-capped Chickadee -46
Tufted Titmouse- 3
Red-breasted Nuthatch
White-breasted Nuthatch -1
Carolina Wren -4
House Wren -3
Hermit Thrush -7 (in Eastham)
American Robin -6
Gray Catbird -200
Northern Mockingbird -4
Cedar Waxwing
European Starling -5
Red-eyed Vireo -1
Blue-winged Warbler -1
Yellow Warbler -7
Prairie Warbler -1
American Redstart -1
Ovenbird -1
Northern Waterthrush -2
Mourning Warbler -1
Common Yellowthroat -36
Northern Cardinal -5
Eastern Towhee -9
Saltmarsh  Sparrow
Song Sparrow -52
Baltimore Oriole -20
Purple Finch
House Finch -1
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow

First Fall Migrants

17 - 31 July

Wow, it certainly has been a banner year for numbers of birds and ticks on birds this summer. I've only been able to open a portion of the nets I usually do and have plenty of birds to keep us busy. Ticks removed from birds in the past two weeks numbered close to 300. Although I showed you a tick on a robin in an earlier post, here is a young Carolina Wren with one that is clearly visible below the eye.

On Saturday the 17th, Gretchen, Carolyn, Judy, and I opened 14 nets for 3 hours and captured 54 birds. We had nothing different from the usual suspects, but did capture a first year Brown-headed Cowbird (grrrr....). I wonder what poor warbler species or Song Sparrow ended up raising this bird. As you may know, Brown-headed Cowbirds don't build their own nest but deposit their eggs in the nests of other birds, particularly warblers. The young hatch and are usually much larger, crowding out the smaller nestlings by eating most of the food fed by the parents and may even push out the other birds. They are a native species to this country, originally found for the most part on the Great Plains associating with bison herds. When the European settlers came to this country and proceeded to cut down most of the forests in the east, the cowbird eventually expanded its range wreaking havoc among the birds in our area.

Juvenile Brown-headed Cowbirds look similar to adult females but have buff-edged body and wing covert feathers.

I didn't band at all the following week, instead spent the week with my vacationing husband kayaking, hiking, biking and general fun. The weekend was rainy, so Judith Bruce and Lyndsay Walls assisted me on Monday the 26th. I had another first year male Prairie Warbler  molting into his preformative molt. He had fairly large chestnut back feathers but was molting the feathers on his head so the dark facial pattern was not evident.

He also had a good amount of white in his outer tail feathers.

While young Yellow Warblers that lack red streaking on the breast are not necessarily females, this handsome boy was clearly a male showing off his somewhat indistinct red breast streaks.

Wednesday was a good day with our first fall migrants coming through. We banded three Northern Waterthrush, which is actually not a thrush, but a species of warbler.

First year waterthrushes have rusty tipping to their tertial feathers (the three inner secondary feathers next to my lower two fingers) not present in adults, although the rusty coloration is typically worn off by spring.

On Wednesday a beautiful male Baltimore Oriole who was going through his annual molt flew in.

 

The next day I captured a juvenile male for a good comparison.

He had molted most of his median coverts (larger feathers on the wing with orange and edged in white) and was working on his inner greater coverts (feathers below the med covs). The orange-edged med coverts is a helpful clue that this is a male, females usually have white-edged med coverts shown in the photo below of this young female.

This bird had adventitious molt going on in the right wing, she was replacing her first two primaries, but this was not present in her other wing. It is always important to check both wings in case it might fool you into thinking this was an adult. First year Baltimore Orioles don't have a complete molt their first year. They will retain their primaries, secondaries, primary coverts, and tail feathers replacing them in their second year.

Speaking of adventitious molt, sometimes banders can use this type of molt as a clue to the bird's age seen in this Common Yellowthroat. The pointed tail feathers (rectrices or rects for short) on the right side are juvenile, but has lost some of its left outer rects, replacing them with adult feathers. You can see one of them is clearly more rounded and wider.  

Tail feathers come out rather easily. This is probably a survival mechanism so if a predator grabs a bird by the tail they can "drop" them and escape. I had a young catbird going through the same thing with his tail. You can see the replaced fatter, darker adult rects coming in on the right side of the photo.  

 

More Eastern Phoebes arrived, both adults molting and young birds. This second year bird had a brood patch but was no longer incubating eggs.

We captured numerous young phoebes in the same net area, probably her young. See how much fresher they look!

The "whiskers" on this phoebe's face are known as rictal bristles and are actually hairlike feather projections. They are present in flycatchers and insect-eating birds, thought to protect the face from scaly insects, but we don't really know for sure.

A young European Starling let me have it. Warblers are often docile while I'm taking their picture, but no so with starlings- check it out:

A close up shows the ragged roof of its mouth thought to help grind up those juicy hairy caterpillars they like to consume.

On Friday I was so excited,  YES! I've finally confirmed a species as a breeder on Wing Island, one I have suspected of breeding there but never had positive proof. A Saltmarsh Sparrow!

Their old name, Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow came from their very pointed tails.

She had a full brood patch with fluid visible.

We ended the week on Saturday handling a whopping 91 birds, I was happy I had plenty of help. Carolyn came back with a poor juvenile catbird with the worst case of a deformed upper mandible than I have ever seen.

Surprisingly, this bird was obviously able to eat as its weight, although a bit lighter, was comparable with other catbirds at this time of year. I doubt he will make it to next year though.

On a happier note, our first Red-eyed Vireos showed up today. We've never had one earlier than mid August and we've never had Northern Waterthrushes before the end of August. Guess the birds had such a good breeding year they are heading out early.

As adults the red eye is very prominent but hatching year birds have brown eyes, a quick clue to age.

Thanks very much to the following people for helping out at some point during the last two weeks: Judith Bruce, Judy Keller, Carolyn Kennedy, Gretchen Putonen, Jessica Rempel, and Lyndsay Walls. The following birds were seen, heard, or captured during 17-31 July. Numbers reflect captured birds only.

Total birds: 372                        Total species: 52

Total banded species: 23           Birds/100 net-hours: 98

Great Blue Heron
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Red-tailed Hawk
Northern Bobwhite
Greater Yellowlegs
Willet
Least Sandpiper
Herring Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Least Tern
Ruby-throated Hummingbird-4
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker-7
Hairy Woodpecker
Yellow-shafted Flicker
Eastern Phoebe-8
Great Crested Flycatcher
Eastern Kingbird-4
Tree Swallow
Barn Swallow
Blue Jay
American Crow
Fish Crow
Black-capped Chickadee-37
Tufted Titmouse-11
Red-breasted Nuthatch
White-breasted Nuthatch
Carolina Wren-4
House Wren-1
Eastern Bluebird
American Robin-4
Gray Catbird-153
Northern Mockingbird
Cedar Waxwing
European Starling-1
Red-eyed Vireo-1
Yellow Warbler-17
Prairie Warbler-7
Northern Waterthrush-3
Common Yellowthroat-42
Northern Cardinal-6
Eastern Towhee-2
Saltmarsh Sparrow-1
Song Sparrow-52
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird-1
Baltimore Oriole-5
House Finch-1
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow