Andrew’s Posting for August 22nd to 28th

This week at Cabot Head has been variable with a stretch of sunny warm weather and a couple of stormy days with high winds and rain. Most days were steady but slowish in terms of banding birds. Two gadwalls were observed on the 21st as well as 4 mallards. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds were highly active with anywhere from a half to a full dozen hanging around the area. 11 hooded mergansers were observed on the 24th as well as 2 common loons flying by. Raptor activity was good with a banded merlin and 3 bald eagles (2 adult, 1 hatch-year) hanging around on the 24th and a sharp-shinned hawk banded on the 25th. An eastern screech owl was heard calling on the 27th in the wee hours of the morning and the 2nd Cooper’s Hawk for the station was banded on the 28th. Whip-poor-wills have been heard in the morning for the week. Warblers have continued to move through with good diversity with; Nashville, yellow, magnolia, Cape May, black-throated blue, myrtle, black-throated green, blackburnian, black-and-white, American redstart, ovenbird, northern waterthrush, Canada and common yellowthroat all banded or observed. The first Philadelphia vireos were banded on the 27h. least and Traill’s flycatcher continued to move through with several of each banded and observed. A winter wren was banded on the 27th as well as a brown thrasher and a hairy woodpecker. A pleasant surprise were two hatch-year belted kingfisher that ended up in the net after chasing each other through the woods. The 28th was the best day with 46 birds of 16 species were banded including; song sparrow, rose-breasted grosbeak, chipping sparrow, scarlet tanager and blackburnian warbler. A black-billed cuckoo was also seen on the 28th as well as common, hooded and red-breasted mergansers.

Andrew

Standard-to-date banding total 2013: 316

Standard-to-date banding total 2012: 305