Field Season doesn't recognize holidays, so today we banded at Erie Bluffs. This was the first day where the morning sun shone with that milky light that promises a hot and humid day to follow. I had the nets open by 6:30 AM, but closed down by 11 AM as temperatures were getting into the 80s (~30 deg C.) and it was getting too hot to handle birds safely. We still had a nice time under the shade of the tulip trees and caught 22 birds, 16 new and eight recaptures. 

It's going to be a good day when these two birds are in your first net run.

Note the complete yellowish eye-ring. Least Flycatchers have a whitish eye-ring that's more teardrop shaped, Willow/Alder have an incomplete one, and Acadians have a thin white eye-ring. Yellow-bellies are also one of the later migrants, so are expected in late May.

We were lucky enough to catch Gray-cheeks and Veeries in the same net run, so I took a few comparative photos to illustrate the differences between them.

The Veery is much brighter colored and has less spotting on its chest. There's more to look for, but that's the easiest way to tell them apart. There was also a Veery singing next to our banding table, so now I've heard all of our thrushes in song this spring. It's nice to band back east.

These two weren't very happy about being photographed. It was almost as bad as getting a good picture of a two-year-old child.

Our one Swainson's Thrush was caught an hour later, so we weren't able to photograph all three of them together. Perhaps tomorrow.