We had a busy weekend of visitors here so sorry this is late. Jaci and Tom invited some friends who are catsitting for them to come visit with their kids and we had a great time on Saturday playing on the beach. Cooper enjoyed chasing the shorebirds as always!
Cooper, our house mutt who is always always always excited to see us when we come home. (Gotta love a dog!)
Sunday we had visitors from other USM labs. Caitlin and Susan study testosterone in Northern Cardinals, and Laura and Jen work with snapping shrimp and crabs, respectively. It was great to have some extra pairs of hands around, because we had a 100+ bird day! To date, we've put in over 6,000 net hours to capture 1600+ birds, beating last year's totals. (Granted, they had 2 hurricanes to contend with . . . which prompted a late start and a hiatus in the middle of the season when the site was flooded.) It was slow before Sunday though, so I had a chance to take a few shots of the site, including one of our "bonsai tree" below. It's actually a Slash Pine, but it is useful as a landmark when orientating yourself within the site.
A flock of white pelicans flying over the site.
This adult male American Redstart doesn't change into duller plumage for the fall migration. The orange tips to the feathers suggest that this male may be 2+ years old.
The American Redstart also has prominent rictal bristles. These specialized feathers on either side of the bill are found on many insectivorous birds and may help funnel flying insects into an open mouth.
Which one of these is not like the others? This hatch-year Worm-eating Warbler is regrowing its outermost right tail feather. The hatch-year tail feathers are pointed, but tail feathers grown after birds leave the nest are blunt-tipped, a useful characteristic for ageing hatch-year birds.
Why did I say migration was ending? It was pretty slow this week (except for Sunday), but also we are seeing a different suite of species. Instead of migrants, we are getting a lot of birds that will winter here, or birds that don't have to go too much further South to get to their wintering grounds. Our recent species composition has been dominated by Myrtle Warblers (one of the first migrants I encountered this spring at BSBO), Hermit Thrushes, Tennessee Warblers, and Swamp Sparrows. Today we caught a Grasshopper Sparrow, a new species for me.
A Grasshopper Sparrow with a bill deformity (crossed bill).
We also are catching a fair amount of Kinglets. We get two species down here, Golden Crowned and Ruby Crowned. All male Ruby Crowned Kinglets have some red head feathers, so the RCKI on the right is a male. The GCKI on the left is a female; males would have orange and yellow head feathers instead of only the yellow ones shown here.
Alright, it is getting past my bedtime and time to wrap up this post. I'll try to fill you in with a guide to Jaci's Swainson Thrush telemetry project in the next entry!
No comments:
Post a Comment