Week 9 - Cheers, to 100K subs

With the clearing of the smoke, migration is back in full swing! We had a few busy days at the stations this week, as is standard for our migration peak, and a few not-so-busy days. On the first day of the week, the smoke was bad enough at Pedder to warrant an early closure, with the result that only a single bird was banded that day. Thankfully the situation improved through the week and by Friday we had clear skies once more.

Smoke and fog at Rocky Point (David Bell)

At Pedder, things really were better for most of the week (excluding the closure day), with fairly consistent numbers of birds in the nets. The station got its first Northern Flicker (a nice Red-shafted), Steller's Jay, White-throated Sparrow and "Audubon's" Warblers of the season, boosting our species totals nicely. The top three for the "week of sparrows" were Fox Sparrow (59), "Oregon" Junco (49) and Golden-crowned Sparrow (43), together making up almost 40% of our catch for the week. Our oldest recapture for the week here was a male Bushtit banded as a hatch-year in July 2018, making him just over two years old.

White-throated Sparrow (Rebecca Reader-Lee)

At Rocky, the birds were much more hit-or-miss, and the relatively low number of recaptures shows there was high turnover this week at the site. After a fairly slow (and smoky) start to the week, the floodgates opened on the 18th; after a massive overnight movement in smoke-free skies we banded 167 individuals - merely a fraction of the birds that were on site that day for a truly incredible migration experience! Interestingly this is the exact same daily total as 18 Sep 2019, when we had a large fallout of sparrows after several days of rain. New for the season at the site were Steller's Jay, Varied Thrush, White-throated Sparrow, "Myrtle" Warbler, and the highlight of the week - a Dusky Flycatcher, our 9th banding record. Top captures were Savannah Sparrow (56; 39 of those in one day!), Lincoln's Sparrow (47) and Golden-crowned Sparrow (45), as Rocky also got in on the sparrow action. Rocky also claimed the 'oldest bird of the week' award (despite a lower number of overall recaptures), with a "Puget Sound" White-crowned Sparrow that was originally banded as an after-hatch-year in September 2016, making it at least five years old!

Dusky Flycatcher! (Rebecca Golat)

All those birds just from one net run on our busy day! (David Bell)

Radar image at ~3am on the 18th - this is what many thousands of birds in the air at once looks like, and is a good indication we'll be swamped the next day (rain band on left of image in yellow)

One highlight of the week was that RPBO unofficially hit our 100,000th bird banded during standard fall passerine monitoring! This number was figured out by adding together the season totals from past annual reports, so may or may not be exact, but it was fun to count down over the course of the week. The milestone bird was a "Puget Sound" White-crowned Sparrow banded by Donna on the 21st at Rocky, just before net closing.

Pier with a Steller's Jay (Donna Talluto)

The board at Pedder has some new deco's courtesy of Liam (David Bell)

New arrivals for the week at Pedder were a White-throated Sparrow on the 19th and a surprise Wood Duck on the 20th. The Wood Duck was a first record for the site and the 200th species for the eBird hotspot, although a few of those have only been recorded on boat trips - if you're reading this and have one of those lists, please change it to the boating hotspot! Rocky added Wood Duck, Blue-winged Teal, Short-eared Owl, Caspian Tern, Herring Gull, White-throated Sparrow and Townsend's Solitaire for more expected species, along with Least Flycatcher, Bobolink (2nd site record) and Blackpoll Warbler (3rd site record) as rarities. Some other nice sightings for the week were multiple Brown Pelicans and Broad-winged Hawks, the continuing Gray Catbird and Ruffed Grouse, and a Dusky Flycatcher outside the nets - surprisingly not the same individual that was banded the following day!

Spotted Towhee giving Rebecca the eye (Rebecca Golat)

Our Northern Saw-whet Owl monitoring program also kicked off on the 15th. It has been a bit of a slow start to the season, but so far they have banded 14 owls at Rocky and 10 at Pedder Bay during the first six nights.

Making mint tea - owl banders, take note! (Donna Talluto)

Pedder Bay	Sep 15th	16th	17th	18th	19th	20th	21st	Total
Banded	1	70	70	92	34	68	52	387
Species banded	1	17	17	22	16	20	17	35
Recap	0	15	14	7	12	16	6	44
Species recap	0	10	10	6	6	7	5	19

Rocky Point	Sep 15th	16th	17th	18th	19th	20th	21st	Total
Banded	18	50	38	167	47	44	43	407
Species banded	10	14	18	22	16	15	12	31
Recap	8	4	3	3	3	9	2	32
Species recap	7	4	3	3	3	6	2	15

(click to enlarge)