We had an interesting first day of October. The weather pattern has been stagnant as a cold front that was originally supposed to make it at least to central Florida hung up over Georgia and Alabama. We could see the birds piled up behind it on the NWS Doppler radar, and most of those birds launched out across the Gulf of Mexico. They did not have strong tailwinds, but they also didn’t have strong headwinds and time is passing so they need to get going. We had a series of slow banding days to end September with, but it was not a bad month overall. dailytotals_sept_2016
Left: Veery Right: Swainson’s thrush
Thunderstorms blossomed up last night in the Florida Keys and drifted northward, intercepting some southbound migrants over Cape Florida. The rain ended soon after sunrise, so we were excited with what the day might bring. The overall volume was not huge, with 46 new captures, but the proportions were interesting. Clearly, the longer-winged strong fliers had gotten out ahead of the mass of migrants finally reaching central Florida and the rain had put a few of them down on our site. We banded a season’s worth of Catharus thrush in one day and also captured a first-of-season Bay-breasted warbler, as well as a very late Louisiana waterthrush. Seen onsite were Tennesee warblers, many more Red-eyed vireos than were captured, and a Philadelphia vireo. The waterthrush, it turns out, had a healed broken leg so we wonder if recovering from this injury caused the delay in migration. Most Louisiana waterthrush pass through our area in July! The bird was in good enough condition to continue its journey.
Total: 46 new of 14 species
- Swainson’s thrush : 22
- Gray-cheeked thrush: 6
- Veery: 3
- American redstart: 3
- Red-eyed vireo: 2
- Common yellowthroat: 2
- Great crested flycatcher: 1
- White-eyed vireo: 1
- Northern parula: 1
- Black-throated blue warbler: 1
- Bay-breasted warbler: 1
- Swainson’s warbler; 1
- Ovenbird: 1
- Lousiana waterthrush: 1
We are watching major Hurricane Matthew with much interest as we do not know how close his passage to our location will be. The most likely solution at this time is he stays out to sea east of the Florida peninsula, but whether he will be close enough to affect our weather remains to be seen.
Overall totals: 1169 birds of 38 species
- Ovenbird: 259
- American redstart: 191
- Worm-eating warbler: 152
- Black-and-white warbler: 102
- Northern waterthrush: 84
- Black-throated blue warbler: 75
- Common yellowthroat: 50
- Blue-gray gnatcatcher: 43
- Swainson’s thrush: 33
- Swainson’s warbler: 30
Yadda yadda yadda…..