Yesterday the station was closed as TD19 went right over us on its way to becoming TS Sally in the Gulf. Overnight we were awakened by loud gusty thunderstorms and then by daylight it had settled into a tropical sort of day with a steady E wind in the 20’s, layered clouds and bouts of hard sideways rain.
Last night there were some trailing bands parked over Cape Florida all night that broke up by dawn and did not interfere with banding. In fact it was a wonderful day with a slowly decreasing SE wind but the cloud cover remained, creating excellent conditions to continue mistnetting into the afternoon. We closed nets just after 3PM, with 51 new birds of 14 species captured.
Many birds rode out the stormy conditions onsite and we were greeted to wake-up calls already in the woods as it got lighter. At full light we heard and saw flocks of Bobolinks flying low over the Cape along with assorted swallows and Eastern kingbirds. From about 830 on we could hear incoming flocks of warblers landing in the canopy and then moving restlessly around.
By midday these birds had settled into foraging flocks that were sweeping around the study site and giving us a steady stream of captures. We were never slammed, but they came in a few each round and we ended with our busiest and most diverse day so far this season. Our site is not set up to catch huge numbers of birds because few of our nets catch birds doing relocation movements after landing. We tend to catch birds after they have coalesced into foraging flocks and settle into the woods. A lot of birds go over our nets because of the canopy height. Still, we get a nice sample of what is stopping over in the area and using the restored maritime forest. We had multiple first-of-seasons today along with our bread-and-butter species. Slower but steady days can be fun because you have time to appreciate all the new species in the hand.
| SPECIES | NEW | RETURN | RECAP |
| Traill’s flycatcher | 1 | – | – |
| Red-eyed vireo | 2 | – | – |
| Veery | 1 | – | – |
| Blue-gray gnatcatcher | 1 | – | – |
| Prairie warbler | 8 | – | – |
| Northern parula | 5 | – | – |
| American redstart | 12 | – | – |
| Black-and-white warbler | 4 | – | 1 |
| Black-throated blue warbler | 3 | – | – |
| Northern waterthrush | 3 | – | – |
| Swainson’s warbler | – | – | 1 |
| Worm-eating warbler | 6 | – | – |
| Ovenbird | 2 | – | 1 |
| Common yellowthroat | 2 | – | – |
| Canada warbler | 1 | – | – |
| # BIRDS CAPTURED | # SPECIES | # NETS | NET HOURS | CAPTURE RATE (BIRDS/100NH) | |
| DAILY TOTAL | 51 | 14 | 23 | 127.22 | 42.45 |
| SEASON TOTAL | 449 | 26 | 23 | 3183.73 | 16.08 |