We banded a real treat yesterday; this hatching year male Blackburnian warbler. He got into a net on the closing run at 1300, after a very brief rainstorm passed over Cape Florida. He had a huge fat load since this species is traveling to wintering areas as far south as Peru and Bolivia. It is possible the threat of rain caused him to land. A fallout of one!
Blackburnian warblers generally prefer not to stopover in the scrub/limited woods of Key Biscayne, and are seen much more frequently on the mainland. This is one of several species that are more common in western Florida and along the Gulf during migration. Blackburnians in all plumages can be told by the face pattern, with a prominent supercilium and distinctive cheek patch. Most birds have at least a warm yellowish-orange color on the throat and head, and some adult males can be nearly as bright orange in fall as in spring. A simply lovely bird!
We have had a big slowdown in numbers of birds captured this week. After banding our 1000th bird of the season on Sept 28, we have struggled to get the next 100. North and west winds combined with clear skies around the outer periphery of Hurricane Joaquin made for excellent migration conditions for trans-Gulf and Florida peninsular migrants and these birds had safe and speedy passage to all points south, with the exception of the Bahamas. Meanwhile, Atlantic coast migrants likely have been backed up all week by tremendous rainfall in the Carolinas courtesy of another low pressure system parked there. The end result for Cape Florida was a serious decrease in the numbers of birds both seen and mistnetted this week. Birds were flowing overhead at night and in the mornings, and we could see them on radar and hear the flight calls at sunrise, but they kept right on going!
We had to settle for banding some locals, like this Northern mockingbird. We catch very few of these, which is surprising since some of our nets are in the open scrubby habitat that they prefer. Resident birds do tend to learn the net locations, though.
Here are our totals for September 2015; 889 birds of 39 species.
Top ten for the month:
- Ovenbird-245
- American redstart-116
- Worm-eating warbler-102
- Black-throated blue warbler-97
- Northern waterthrush-63
- Black-and-white warbler-50
- Common yellowthroat-42
- Prairie warbler-32
- Red-eyed vireo-23
- Swainson’s warbler-23
Gorgeous little orange jewel! Nice work, guys.