Sometimes otherwise quiet days produce interesting results. Migration across the southeast US was strong last night, with millions of birds in the air overnight (the greens on the radar grab), especially over the Mississippi valley heading out across the Gulf of Mexico. Other birds can be seen going down the Atlantic seaboard into northern Florida or heading south from the Carolinas out over the ocean.
Most of these birds had not made it to South Florida by this morning, although there was a nice diversity of migrants seen on the mainland like this handsome fella.
The species seen and banded out at Cape Florida were the usual birds bound for the Greater Antilles. Our first bird of the morning was an adult Prairie warbler with a worn band, indicating that this was a returning bird from another year. His band number was not ours, however, which got us excited because we have not captured another bander’s bird for a few years now. When we reported the information to the USGS Bird Banding Lab, we found out that he was originally banded as an after-hatch year on Feb. 7 2016 in Puerto Rico! I think I know who banded him, too; more later when I get the confirmation from the BBL.
| SPECIES | NEW | RETURN | RECAP |
| Blue-gray gnatcatcher | 1 | – | – |
| Northern parula | 1 | – | – |
| Prairie warbler | 1 | 1* | – |
| American redstart | 1 | – | – |
| Black-and-white warbler | 1 | – | – |
| Worm-eating warbler | 4 | – | – |
| Northern waterthrush | 1 | – | – |
| Ovenbird | 1 | – | 1 |
| # BIRDS CAPTURED | # SPECIES | # NETS | NET HOURS | CAPTURE RATE (BIRDS/100NH) | |
| DAILY TOTAL | 12 | 8 | 23 | 85.47 | 15.21 |
| SEASON TOTAL | 262 | 18 | 23 | 2497.97 | 12.17 |