We continue to catch mostly birds that have spent the winter at Cape Florida, including this Ovenbird which has come back for 9 years at least; he was banded as an adult in 2012!
Male Chuck-will’s widows are on the move, and we have banded 3 so far. We hear them singing every morning in the dark while we open the nets. This is truly a bizarre bird, and don’t let the tiny beak fool you. Their mouth opens up to be half the size of their head like a feathery Pacman.
Among the species getting ready to leave for the summer is this handsome Blue-headed vireo. They will head to forests across the Northeast US and Canada to breed. Some are singing already before they go.
We finally caught a migrating individual! This Worm-eating warbler was extremely fat, compared to the lean birds we had otherwise been catching. Fat is the fuel for migration, and the physiology of migrating birds changes to accommodate the extreme demands of the trip. The most important are the metabolic changes that make birds hungrier and cause their bodies to deposit these fat loads. Non-migratory birds usually do not carry large fat loads, so this is one way we can tell wintering individuals from those in-transit among species that winter here. The Ovenbird from 2012 was also fat, so he is getting ready to begin his migration. He is probably gone by now with all the southerly winds we have had over the last week.
TOTALS TO MAR 30 2021
| SPECIES | NEW | RETURN |
| Chuck-will’s widow | 3 | – |
| Blue-headed vireo | 1 | – |
| Gray catbird | 21 | 2 |
| Hermit thrush | 1 | – |
| Western palm warbler | 1 | – |
| Black and white warbler | 3 | 1 |
| American redstart | 1 | – |
| Prairie warbler | 1 | 2 |
| Worm-eating warbler | 1 | – |
| Swainson’s warbler | 2 | – |
| Ovenbird | 2 | 4 |
| Louisiana waterthrush | 1 | – |
| Common yellowthroat | 4 | 1 |
| TOTAL | 42 | 10 |
| # BIRDS CAPTURED | # SPECIES | # NETS | NET HOURS | CAPTURE RATE (BIRDS/100NH) | |
| SEASON TOTAL | 52 | 13 | 23 | 1014.5 | 3.06 |
Glad to see you are banding in the spring this year. We can compare what we catch on the west coast of Florida at the Caladesi Island Banding Station!