Week of Sarah Trying to Wear Knee-Boots

Nice male Myrtle Warbler. Photo by Barbara Logan.

Thursday was slow and not very exciting. I kid you not, the thing that went in the 'cool birds' column on the whiteboard was "Moose".

There was a moose at the banding station. And at nets 24 and 25.

There were also Robins carrying nesting material near net 25 and a Horned Grebe nest near net 11.

I wore my knee boots out of a sense of misplaced optimism. This led to me being wet.

(Thursday 26 May) Banding Summary: 13 birds, 7 species (OCWA, AMRO, SWTH, BCCH, CORE, SCJU, MYWA).

I had an awesome idea to fix the wet from Thursday. The water wasn't much over my boots, so I figured that if I wore rain pants, that would fix the problem. Wrong. My littany while sloshing to net 23 was "Please, PLEASE make it worth getting wet!" It didn't.

OMG Mosquitos. DEEEEEET.

Pile of dead mosquitos.

It's started to get a bit too warm in the afternoons. 81 in the shade is not acceptable.

Cool birds: tiniest Redpoll baby EVER.

(Friday 27 May) Banding Summary: 14 birds, 7 species (CORE, YWAR, SCJU, AMRO, MYWA, OCWA, LISP).

Saturday was business as usual. Our Savannah Sparrow and Lincoln's Sparrow were cool and our Black-Capped Chickadee was nice to see after awhile not seeing them.

We think we might have had a squirrel predation, so we'll keep a very close eye on nets 18 and 19 where he hangs out.

Common Redpoll baby!!

(Saturday 28 May) Banding Summary: 17 birds, 9 species (SCJU, OCWA, LISP, AMRO, CORE, YWAR, BCCH, MYWA, SAVS).

Sunday was the beginning of the baby Redpoll hoard (we had 9 with 2 adult chaperones). It was breezy by mid-morning, which kept the mosquitos down, but caused the closing of nets 4, 6, and 7. Sandy and Dayna were able to do the front gully in knee-boots. I'd learned my lesson by this point, sucked it up and wore the chest waders.

(Sunday 29 May) Banding Summary: 19 birds, 4 species (CORE, MYWA, YWAR, AMRO).

Taking measurements on a Hammond's Flycatcher.
Photo by Barbara Logan.

By Monday, the hoard had become an army. 20 Redpoll babies. Apparently it was Mom's day at the spa or something because all 3 of the adult Redpolls we caught with the babies were male.

(Monday 30 May) Banding Summary: 32 birds, 8 species (CORE, AMRO, SWTH, MYWA, YWAR, NOWA, HAFL, SAVS).