The west winds blowing for the last few days did not bring Cape Florida any great numbers of birds as hoped, but a few new faces appeared in the nets. We banded several Eastern Phoebes, a common wintering flycatcher. Three Wood Thrush were a treat, and we banded one Myrtle Warbler but nobody took a picture of it. Myrtle Warblers are just barely arriving in our area when we close for the season, and most years we don’t catch any but occasionally a flock will find the nets.
Below: Eastern Phoebe portraits taken by Miriam Avello
The main reason we close the Station so early in November is because there normally is a gap between when the Neotropical migrants pass through and the wintering birds arrive, and we catch very little. Nice fronts sweep through but there are few birds moving on them. This is sort of what happened with the last front and we caught fewer than 20 birds on the first day with west winds. However, the diversity has been fairly good and we got a Whip-poor Will on Sunday. Gray Catbirds and Black-throated Blue Warblers have been the dominant species.
Fall Season Total (from August 15)
| SPECIES | NEW | RETURN |
| Sharp-shinned Hawk | 2 | – |
| Cooper’s Hawk | 1 | – |
| Broad-winged Hawk | 2 | – |
| Common Ground-dove | 1 | – |
| Yellow-billed Cuckoo | 1 | – |
| Chuck-will’s Widow | 8 | – |
| Eastern whip-poor-will | 1 | – |
| Red-bellied Woodpecker | 2 | – |
| Acadian Flycatcher | 1 | – |
| Traill’s Flycatcher | 7 | – |
| Alder Flycatcher | 4 | – |
| Eastern Phoebe | 4 | – |
| Great Crested Flycatcher | 7 | – |
| White-eyed Vireo | 12 | 1 |
| Yellow-throated Vireo | 1 | – |
| Red-eyed Vireo | 29 | – |
| Veery | 3 | – |
| Swainson’s Thrush | 24 | – |
| Gray-cheeked Thrush | 3 | – |
| Wood Thrush | 3 | – |
| Gray Catbird | 172 | 3 |
| Blue-gray Gnatcatcher | 35 | – |
| Ruby-crowned Kinglet | 1 | – |
| Tennessee Warbler | 1 | – |
| Northern Parula | 53 | – |
| Chestnut-sided warbler | 1 | – |
| Magnolia Warbler | 4 | – |
| Cape May Warbler | 10 | – |
| Black-throated Blue Warbler | 266 | – |
| Myrtle Warbler | 1 | – |
| Blackburnian Warbler | 1 | – |
| Yellow-throated Warbler | 1 | – |
| Prairie Warbler | 32 | – |
| Western Palm Warbler | 10 | – |
| Blackpoll Warbler | 1 | – |
| Black-and-white Warbler | 110 | 1 |
| American Redstart | 235 | – |
| Prothonotary Warbler | 4 | – |
| Worm-eating Warbler | 95 | – |
| Swainson’s Warbler | 26 | – |
| Ovenbird | 268 | 8 |
| Northern Waterthrush | 74 | – |
| Louisiana Waterthrush | 4 | – |
| Common Yellowthroat | 119 | – |
| Hooded Warbler | 3 | – |
| Wilson’s Warbler | 1 | – |
| Canada Warbler | 1 | – |
| Scarlet Tanager | 1 | – |
| Northern Cardinal | 13 | 2 |
| Blue Grosbeak | 1 | – |
| Indigo Bumting | 4 | – |
| Painted Bunting | 48 | 1 |
| Common Grackle | 2 | – |
| # BIRDS CAPTURED | # SPECIES | # NETS | NET HOURS | CAPTURE RATE (BIRDS/100NH) | |
| SEASON TOTAL | 1730 | 52 | 23 | 10298.25 | 18.98 |