Week 4: Sippin' that Tennessee Honey

In a typical year, we'd be in the midst of the August doldrums, marked by slow days for birds in the nets and much napping (I mean...obs). While there were echoes of these with a couple of quite slow days at Pedder, migration seems to have started early this year and we were treated to several busy days this week!

The nets were slow and steady to begin the week, then on the 13th Ashlea and I spent the morning running around, as we ended the morning with 63 total birds with no extractors! Pedder went back to slow and steady after that while Rocky stayed relatively hot, ending the week with a solid 76-bird day. At the end of week four, we are almost 300 birds ahead of last year at this time.

A very pale young Warbling Vireo (Siobhan Darlington)

Top captures this week at Rocky were Pacific-slope and Willow flycatchers, White-crowned Sparrow, Warbling Vireo and Orange-crowned Warbler. The latter had quite a high proportion of the interior 'Gray-headed' subspecies group; hopefully a sign of more interior rarities to come! New captures for the season there were Golden-crowned Kinglet and Lincoln's Sparrow. Pedder was led by White-crowned Sparrow, Willow Flycatcher and Wilson's Warbler, while the only new capture for the season was a Brown-headed Cowbird. An interesting recapture came in the form of an old female "Oregon" Dark-eyed Junco on the 12th, in net 11 at Pedder. She was originally banded in August 2012 here, and caught in the same net! This is the first time we have seen her since then. The rarity of the week came on the 16th, when we caught a hatch-year Tennessee Warbler in net 1 at Rocky! This is only the second banding record for RPBO; the previous one was in September 2006.

Tennessee Warbler (David Bell)

Pacific (left) and Gray-headed (centre) Orange-crowned warblers providing a nice comparison to the Tennessee Warbler (right) (David Bell)

7-year-old recap "Oregon" Junco (David Bell)

With migration picking up, we are getting new arrivals almost daily on census and obs. Arrivals at Rocky this week included Wilson's Snipe, Northern Harrier, Surf Scoter, Horned Grebe and a couple of early American Pipits, while an Eastern Kingbird was a census highlight on the 14th. Arrivals at Pedder included Vaux's Swift, Savannah Sparrow, Sharp-shinned Hawk and what might be the first Whimbrel recorded there (a flyover on the 12th).

Eastern Kingbird (David Bell)

Non-avian observations were a little slim this week, although the wolves seem to be getting more active and we heard them on multiple mornings from both stations. Still no sightings though! Daily groups of River Otters at Rocky and the omnipresent and ever-entertaining Black-tailed Deer at Pedder, along with some fishing Raccoons at both stations rounded out the mammal section.

Ashlea with her first hummingbird (Siobhan Darlington)

Thanks again to all of the volunteers who came out this week! Still plenty of gaps for the upcoming weeks, especially for census and extractors. We'd also like to congratulate Mark and Robin Byrne for getting their extractor status this week!

Townsend's Warbler (Siobhan Darlington)

Rocky Point	Aug 11th	Aug 12th	Aug 13th	Aug 14th	Aug 15th	Aug 16th	Aug 17th	Total
Banded	36	23	33	39	29	28	66	254
Species banded	13	14	15	13	12	14	16	31
Recap	8	4	7	7	7	7	10	50
Species recap	5	4	3	3	3	3	4	11

Pedder Bay	Aug 11th	Aug 12th	Aug 13th	Aug 14th	Aug 15th	Aug 16th	Aug 17th	Total
Banded	24	24	53	23	11	14	30	179
Species banded	14	16	15	13	8	7	12	25
Recap	10	8	10	6	7	3	6	50
Species recap	5	8	5	4	5	3	4	12

(Week 4 numbers - click to see full size)

"Gray-headed" Orange-crowned Warbler (Ashlea Veldhoen)