Is what people in South Florida say when the humidity finally breaks in the fall. We haven’t had it break before October in years; in fact lately it has been sticky through Thanksgiving. It probably will get hot again soon, but today was nice.
It was nice birdwise, too! Migrants were on the move with solid northerly winds overnight over the whole region. The NE wind typically does not favor migrants landing at Cape Florida and the radar showed the bulk of the birds flying low inland, but we had our best day of banding so far anyways. A nice distribution of the typical Caribbean-bound species but with our FOS Blue-winged warbler as a special treat! Cape May warblers also made a strong showing, and we seem to be on pace for a great year for them. Cape May numbers at our site can be very inconsistent, with yearly totals ranging from one to 32, with single-digit totals the norm. We have already banded 11 and it is not even October yet! We also banded two more Blackpolls today.
| SPECIES | NEW | RETURN | RECAP |
| Red-eyed vireo | 1 | – | – |
| Blue-gray gnatcatcher | – | – | 1 |
| Northern parula | 1 | – | – |
| Blue-winged warbler | 1 | – | – |
| Cape May warbler | 4 | – | – |
| American redstart | 10 | – | – |
| Black-throated blue warbler | 7 | – | – |
| Blackpoll warbler | 2 | – | – |
| Black-and-white warbler | 13 | – | – |
| Ovenbird | 7 | – | – |
| Worm-eating warbler | 10 | – | – |
| Northern waterthrush | 6 | – | – |
| Common yellowthroat | 1 | – | – |
| # BIRDS CAPTURED | # SPECIES | # NETS | NET HOURS | CAPTURE RATE (BIRDS/100NH) | |
| DAILY TOTAL | 63 | 14 | 22 | 198.25 | 32.28 |
| SEASON TOTAL | 734 | 30 | 23 | 4248.3 | 19.25 |