We still are waiting for a big day of banding, but the weather remains mild. The winds have been mostly southerly all week and there has been little rain, so the conditions for migrating are excellent and birds are making as much distance as possible each night. Still, more are landing at Cape Florida and our daily captures are ranging from 10 to 24 birds instead of 2 to 7. Some new species are starting to show up:
The Black-whiskered vireo is the tropical counterpart to the widespread Red-eyed vireo, and South Florida is close to the northernmost extent of its breeding range. This guy, unlike the other three warblers pictured, is probably going to stop in the area and set up a territory somewhere. They do breed on Cape Florida, but are mostly gone when we come back to band in the fall. One year we did have a male still singing on his territory around the banding station in August, so eventually we caught and banded him!
The forecast for next week calls for continued south to southwest winds and chances of rain most days. We will see if this weather interacts with the migrants to make more of them land at the Cape. The volume of birds passing over is increasing every night. Many of the ficus trees (strangler figs) have ripe fruit right now, so the buffet is set!
TOTALS TO APR 18 2021
| SPECIES | NEW | RETURN |
| Chuck-will’s widow | 3 | – |
| Blue-headed vireo | 1 | – |
| Black-whiskered vireo | 1 | – |
| Gray catbird | 66 | 4 |
| Hermit thrush | 1 | – |
| Northern parula | 2 | – |
| Cape May warbler | 1 | – |
| Black-throated blue warbler | 10 | – |
| Western palm warbler | 4 | – |
| Black and white warbler | 8 | 4 |
| American redstart | 13 | – |
| Prothonotary warbler | 1 | – |
| Prairie warbler | 34 | 2 |
| Worm-eating warbler | 19 | – |
| Swainson’s warbler | 4 | – |
| Ovenbird | 10 | 4 |
| Louisiana waterthrush | 2 | – |
| Northern waterthrush | 13 | – |
| Common yellowthroat | 18 | 1 |
| Northern cardinal | 2 | 9 |
| Indigo bunting | 2 | – |
| Painted bunting | 2 | – |
| TOTAL | 217 | 24 |
| # BIRDS CAPTURED | # SPECIES | # NETS | NET HOURS | CAPTURE RATE (BIRDS/100NH) | |
| SEASON TOTAL | 241 | 22 | 23 | 4117 | 6.24 |