The week in review

I've been a little lax with the posts lately so sorry if you've been counting on daily communication! We've had some busy, nice days and some slow, rainy days (off! Imagine that!).

We've banded 983 birds of 63 species since August 31. Recently, our captures have been dominated by American Redstart, Common Yellowthroat, White-eyed Vireo, and Blue Grosbeaks. The grosbeaks are a lot of fun- being seed eaters they bite rather hard and so are always entertaining to get out of the net. I think Rose-breasted Grosbeaks bite harder, though, and we have yet to capture any of those. Cardinals are also up there on the list of biggest biters; they have such strong bills we band them with stainless steel bands vs the aluminum ones we put on everyone else because the cardinals tend to destroy/pull off aluminum bands. Vireos are smaller and have weaker bills, but with a hooked tip they can still pinch pretty bad. The White-eyed Vireos remind me of chickadees: they are small but feisty and have a lot of attitude! When asked to name my favorite bird for a recent job application I chose Black-capped Chickadee, so I'm enjoying these vireos (we get Carolina Chickadees down here instead of Black-capped).

One highlight this week was another Worm-eating Warbler. They have beautiful coloration on their heads that has to be witnessed in the hand; I haven't seen any photo that does them justice. This one was unusual because it had a white secondary feather on its right wing (below).


We also captured a banded Rufous Hummingbird. It is rare to recapture any banded bird, much less a hummingbird! This was a new species for us this season (we usually get Ruby-throated), and it is unusual for us to capture any of them. What is most curious is that the local hummingbird bander who works at a site down the road just during the two peak weeks of migration in the fall has yet to arrive, so this bird was banded either last year or not at the local site. Even more exciting . . .


Our weather has been variable lately, from cool and dry to thunderstorms to foggy this morning. But this is the view from our porch when the sun is shining and the ocean is calm:

Living on the beach does have its perks!

I've seen dolphins while sitting at our kitchen table several days since I last posted as well. Tom's been enjoying fishing in the surf and has brought home several dinner options, including tarpon. ("The tarpon are hungry!")