A lot of rain moved back into the area overnight from the south and the nets were closed for about an hour while some storms swept through, but after that the conditions were fine for banding. Today we banded two Swainson’s thrush and one Gray-cheeked/ Bicknell’s intergrade, both firsts for the season. The lack of an eye ring and the generally cold tones on the head identify this bird as a Gray-cheeked thrush, but the smaller size points to the possibility that this is really the closely-related Bicknell’s thrush. There is enough of an overlap between the two species that they can not always be readily separated by looks alone, but the song and calls can be diagnostic.
Another mass of migrants is moving through the Southeast just above the Florida peninsula tonight but there also seems to be a rain block. We’ll see how it plays out tomorrow as we close in on the 1,000th bird of the season!
| SPECIES | NEW | RETURN | RECAP |
| Red-eyed vireo | 3 | – | – |
| Swainson’s thrush | 2 | – | – |
| Gray-cheeked/Bicknell’s thrush | 1 | – | – |
| Prairie warbler | 1 | – | – |
| Cape May warbler | 2 | – | – |
| American redstart | 7 | – | 1 |
| Black-throated blue warbler | 4 | – | – |
| Black-and-white warbler | 2 | – | – |
| Ovenbird | 4 | – | 3 |
| Worm-eating warbler | 3 | – | – |
| Common yellowthroat | 1 | – | – |
| # BIRDS CAPTURED | # SPECIES | # NETS | NET HOURS | CAPTURE RATE (BIRDS/100NH) | |
| DAILY TOTAL | 30 | 11 | 23 | 134.25 | 25.33 |
| SEASON TOTAL | 861 | 33 | 23 | 4734.05 | 20.26 |