Birds, Birders and Banding

This past weekend the Presque Isle Audubon Society and Pennsylvania DCNR hosted their annual festival of birds. Many birders, lots of birds and at least one great vagrant made an appearance.

The weather cooperated, with sunny weather and southwesterly winds that brought in good numbers of birds and nice variety of species.

This was the most common Warbler seen during the weekend. They were EVERYWHERE.

One indication that spring migration is progressing was this male Mourning Warbler that we banded on Saturday at Niagara Boat Launch. Unfortunately for the birders, he was the second bird of the morning, so we released him before any visitors had arrived.

Such a striking bird. That combination of gray, green, black and yellow is pretty unusual.

We didn't have huge numbers of birds on Saturday, but a nice variety showed up including this Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

Banding hummingbird requires special equipment and permits (that we don't have). After taking her out of the net I took a few quick photographs before letting her go.

We also caught a second-year (SY) female Baltimore Oriole.

The condition of her tail made the aging rather easy.

Sunday at Fry's Landing we had even fewer birds, but did pull in a very nice variety of speices.

A female Red-winged Blackbird provided a clear view of her peach-colored chin, confirming that she was an After-Second-Year (ASY) bird.

This Northern Waterthrush was a good catch.

Adult (ASY) female American Redstarts aren't as striking as the males, but very pretty birds in they own right.

This male Black-throated Blue Warbler was a real crowd pleaser.

Speaking of crowds, we had 50+ visitors at Niagara Boat Launch on Saturday, along with a camera crew from the local TV station.

Luckily, the Yellow Warblers kept coming in, so we had birds to show and could illustrate how we age and sex birds in the hand.

Here Sarah Sargent and I are showing off plumage differences between two Yellow Warblers.

It did get rather crowded at times.

I was lucky to have several dedicated volunteers, who helped with removing birds front he nets and recording for me. Thanks to all of you.

The biggest crowd pleaser of the weekend was not a bird that we caught. Instead one of the groups visiting our banding site at Fry's Landing on Sunday found a male Summer Tanager right next to the banding table. This is a very rare bird in Pennsylvania, with only one or two recorded in the state each year.

He was very cooperative, staying in the cottonwoods for more than two hours, giving almost everyone who wanted to great looks. Several photographers descended upon the area, and Sam Stull was gracious enough to provide these two photos of our very well-timed vagrant.

Male Summer Tanager. Photograph courtesy of Sam Stull

On this photo you can see some green on his belly, so he's probably a SY bird.

Male Summer Tanager. Photograph courtesy of Sam Stull

I don't know what the final tally was for the festival, but everyone saw lots of birds. After closing the nets at noon on Sunday, I went out and saw about 15 species of warblers, including 10 Cape May Warblers and a half-dozen Bay-breasted Warblers. Now for the Connecticut Wabler....