The winds have not been in our favor for the past week, and we are still crawling towards the 1,000th capture of the season. However, we are collecting some good data on recaptured birds: birds banded earlier this season that are remaining onsite to replenish their fat reserves while waiting for a good time to depart. Our favorite recent recapture is this adult male Hooded Warbler, originally banded on Sept 25 weighing 10.7 g. He was recaptured on Oct 1 and had added quite a bit of fat, weighing in at 12.3 g or so. We heard him chinking in the same area between several nets for a couple of more days, so he had a good stopover at Cape Florida for at least a week.
This morning started off humid again; a little unwelcome after the drier air that moved in during the last week of September. The easterly winds had relaxed overnight and it was calm at sunrise, with more flight calls in the air than we had heard earlier in the week. Still, our nets were empty until a few birds trickled in here and there throughout the morning, including the first Alder Flycatcher we had banded in over a week. Around 1150 a flock of Swainson’s Thrush flew in, calling to each other with their flight calls that I am used to hearing high overhead at night. They seemed to disappear in the woods once they landed, but then another special bird that wasn’t around earlier in the day appeared about 30 minutes later.
This was a young male Blackburnian Warbler, a species that we have only banded once since 2011 (in 2015). He was foraging very low in some small privet shrubs immediately around the banding tent, and taunted us by flying through the banding tent under the canopy and just over our heads not once but twice. We were in the process of closing up the nets for the afternoon and had caught a small flock after a Cooper’s Hawk had chased them down out of the canopy of a ficus directly over a net. This flock included a Red-bellied woodpecker; a resident species that is usually too savvy to get caught.
When we went to close the last couple of nets after banding the flock, the barnstorming smart-aleck Blackburnian Warbler was waiting for us. A very nice end to the day!
I am hoping that the Swainson’s Thrush and Blackburnian Warbler are precursors to a new movement of migrants coming down the state tomorrow or the next day. Sometimes these strong fliers with long wings seem to get out ahead of the bulk of the other migrants in their wave, and then the next day brings a zillion Common Yellowthroats or Gray Catbirds. We will see!
| SPECIES | NEW | RETURN | RECAP |
| Red-bellied Woodpecker | 1 | – | – |
| Alder Flycatcher | 1 | – | – |
| Swainson’s Thrush | 1 | – | – |
| Blue-gray Gnatcatcher | – | – | 2 |
| Prairie Warbler | 2 | – | – |
| American Redstart | 4 | – | 1 |
| Black-throated Blue Warbler | 4 | – | – |
| Blackburnian Warbler | 1 | – | – |
| Worm-eating Warbler | – | – | 1 |
| Ovenbird | 1 | – | 1 |
Fall Season Total (from August 15)
| SPECIES | NEW | RETURN |
| Cooper’s Hawk | 1 | – |
| Common Ground-dove | 1 | – |
| Chuck-will’s Widow | 6 | – |
| Red-bellied Woodpecker | 1 | – |
| Traill’s Flycatcher | 7 | – |
| Alder Flycatcher | 4 | – |
| Great Crested Flycatcher | 6 | – |
| White-eyed Vireo | 6 | – |
| Yellow-throated Vireo | 1 | – |
| Red-eyed Vireo | 20 | – |
| Veery | 2 | – |
| Swainson’s Thrush | 4 | – |
| Gray Catbird | 2 | – |
| Blue-gray Gnatcatcher | 34 | – |
| Northern Parula | 36 | – |
| Magnolia Warbler | 1 | – |
| Cape May Warbler | 9 | – |
| Black-throated Blue Warbler | 96 | – |
| Blackburnian Warbler | 1 | – |
| Yellow-throated Warbler | 1 | – |
| Prairie Warbler | 26 | – |
| Western Palm Warbler | 3 | – |
| Blackpoll Warbler | 1 | – |
| Black-and-white Warbler | 78 | – |
| American Redstart | 147 | – |
| Prothonotary Warbler | 4 | – |
| Worm-eating Warbler | 87 | – |
| Swainson’s Warbler | 20 | – |
| Ovenbird | 213 | 4 |
| Northern Waterthrush | 71 | – |
| Louisiana Waterthrush | 4 | – |
| Common Yellowthroat | 62 | – |
| Hooded Warbler | 2 | – |
| Canada Warbler | 1 | – |
| Northern Cardinal | 12 | – |
| Blue Grosbeak | 1 | – |
| Painted Bunting | 1 | – |
| Common Grackle | 1 | – |
| # BIRDS CAPTURED | # SPECIES | # NETS | NET HOURS | CAPTURE RATE (BIRDS/100NH) | |
| DAILY TOTAL | 15 | 8 | 23 | 135.75 | 14.73 |
| SEASON TOTAL | 973 | 37 | 23 | 7010.25 | 15.71 |
Good report. Nice photos. Great birds. Glad the Hooded Warbler fattened up during his vacay in sunny South Florida. 🙂
“smart-aleck” blackburnian!! These posts are the best… Very cool to hear about the long-winged birds sometimes being ahead of the others… did not know that but it makes sense!
That’s so interesting to see the change in the recaptured Hooded Warbler. It’s nice to know it’s feeding well on its stopover. Thank you for your wonderful report. I love the photos!