Saturday the birds taunted us one final time in this very strange banding season. We weren’t even scheduled to be open; our final day was originally the 16th, and we stayed open the 17th because of a DFO Field Trip. Then, had the biggest day of a VERY SLOW season; we banded 51 birds, 22 of which we caught as we were closing the nets! At about 12:30 p.m., after our visitors had left, 3 volunteers and I were closing nets. Got to nets 20 and 21, and there were 15 birds waiting – Yellow-rumped Warblers, Juncos, Chipping Sparrows and a Downy Woodpecker. Breakdown for the day:
Downy Woodpecker 3 Hermit Thrush 4 Myrtle Warbler 4 Audubon’s Warbler 7 Chipping Sparrow 4 Clay-colored Sparrow 1 Song Sparrow 3 White-throated Sparrow 1 (ah, yes, the only one of the season!) Gamble’s White-crowned Sparrow 2 Slate-colored Junco 3 Oregon Junco 7 Pink-sided Junco 11 Junco (unidentified race) 1 The last 4 days (after 4 days of cold, drizzly, no banding weather) we averaged 33 birds per day; for the whole season 17 per day. I’m guessing when I review the entire season, we will see that the differences this year are with certain species. For example, far fewer Wilson’s Warblers, but probably a normal or greater number of Yellow-rumpeds. I’ll keep you posted. Many thanks to Joanne Haller for volunteering to run the nets the extra day, to Francis and Joyce Commercon for staying until the UNbitter end to record all those last-minute birds, and, of course, to DFO for having a field trip that day! I’ll be running the RMBO Station at Chatfield this spring, starting the last week in April. Have a great winter and I’ll look forward to seeing some of you in the spring! Meredith McBurney Bird Bander Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory 303/329-8091 (land line) 303/349-0245 (cell) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Colorado Field Ornithologists: http://www.cfo-link.org/ Colorado County Birding: http://www.coloradocountybirding.com/ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.as/group/cobirds?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
