The pace of migration has slowed down a lot this week as the weather has changed. A large high pressure system sitting over the southeast US is creating unfavorable winds for the birds so they are probably waiting it out all up and down the Atlantic coast. Some birds do appear to be moving short distances overnight on the radar. Still, we banded our 2,000th bird of the season on Tuesday, a White-eyed vireo.
Above is a Gray-cheeked thrush (left) next to a Swainson’s thrush. Note the bold buffy eyering of the Swainson’s, compared to the cooler brown tones on the face of the Gray-cheeked.
We have had a lot of buntings at the Cape for the last week. The left bird is a fall adult male Indigo bunting, with traces of his rich blue plumage tempered by the warm browns. He will molt his body feathers before returning north in the spring and will become a solid turquoise-violet.
The bird on the right is a House wren, a common wintering species in south Florida and one of the first of the winter birds we have captured so far. Most of the other wintering species (Yellow-rumped and Orange-crowned warblers, Blue-headed vireos, etc.) have yet to arrive, although we have heard several Eastern phoebes already.
Here are close-ups of the feathers of some of these buntings; a bander’s-eye view you could say! The top wing is the adult male Indigo bunting pictured above; notice the black feathers edged in blue. He will still have these big flight feathers next spring, and the brown body feathers will be replaced with blue to match the wings.
This is the wing of a hatching-year Painted bunting, probably a male. There are so many gorgeous shades of green on this bird! Notice the browner feathers mixed in; this is one of the ways we can tell the age of the birds. Fledgling songbirds leave the nest with a suit of (usually duller) and weaker feathers that they then begin to replace one-by-one almost immediately. This is possibly related to the energy required by the bird’s body to grow all its feathers at once for fledging; for the rest of the bird’s life it will replace feathers a few at a time over several weeks during certain times of the year so the body can put more material into each one. The replacement adult feathers have a different quality to them; in the case of this bunting they have darker shafts and brighter green edging, and will wear less over the next year until they are molted again.
Here is a quick rundown of our top ten as of today:
2069 birds banded of 58 species
1. Ovenbird: 354
2. Black-throated blue warbler: 344
3. American redstart: 255
4. Gray catbird: 180
5. Common yellowthroat: 159
6. Worm-eating warbler: 131
7. Black & white warbler: 102
8. Northern waterthrush: 80
9. Northern parula: 52
10. Prairie warbler: 52