Week three of migration monitoring has come to a close. It proved to be a fairly typical early August week of banding - showing slower migration and a growing discrepancy in totals between the two stations. Not to fear - large migration nights will pick up soon, and we will be treated to early flight calls when we arrive each morning! Par for the course, RP station surpassed Pedder Bay in season totals and daily banding numbers. This doesn't present a reason for alarm, as PB generally sees a steep incline when the sparrows and kinglets arrive in large numbers.
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| AHY Ovenbird - more on this below (Sonja Futehally) |
Pedder Bay
The season average for week three at Pedder Bay is 157, and this week showed consistency in trends with a total of 156 new birds banded! A total of 41 individuals were recaptured, with several birds returning from last year. These repeat visitors are always a cause for excitement, as they offer much insight into the survivorship and migration patterns of their species. This week saw the return of a White-crowned Sparrow who was banded as an AHY last year, which determines it to be in at least its third year! Good luck, and we hope to see them again next year!
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| A HY Male Common Yellowthroat with the promise of a black mask (Mara Hanneson) |
There were many interesting net runs at the station this week, including the delivery of two Hairy Woodpeckers into net 15! Species in the family Picidae are very intriguing to banders (and everyone, surely!), as their interesting molt strategies give us the opportunity to micro-age with more certainty. These individuals were caught in the same net, and were determined to be a HY and a 3Y. Take a look at the photos below, and let us know if you have any questions about these birds the next time your are at the station!
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| 3Y Hairy Woodpecker - aged by the molt sequence of three primary covert generations! (Sonja Futehally) |
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| A closer look for the molt fanatics amongst us (Sonja Futehally) |
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| Top 10 for week 3 at Pedder Bay |
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| An understated morning at Pedder Bay (Mara Hanneson) |
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| Ripe Himalayan blackberries (Mara Hanneson) |
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| An excellent example of molt in a White-crowned Sparrow - can you spot the feathers growing? (Max Hellicar) |
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| HY Cooper's Hawk - with a wing of 228 mm (Max Hellicar) |
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| A dapper Male Wilson's Warbler was celebrated at Rocky Point (Rebecca Reader-Lee) |
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| Top 10 for week 3 at Rocky Point |
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| Max and Andrew carefully examining the wing of a Willow Flycatcher (Adam Ross) |
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| The wildlife at both stations ensures there is never a dull moment (Mara Hanneson) |
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| Josh helping to collect and catalogue tick data (Rebecca Reader-Lee) |
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| One of the many benefits of rising early (Mara Hanneson) |
New bands as of 10 Aug 2025
| Species | Rocky Point Week 3 | RP Season total | Pedder Bay Week 3 | PB Season total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anna's Hummingbird | 0 | 1 | 0 | 13 |
| Rufous Hummingbird | 6 | 32 | 6 | 28 |
| Belted Kingfisher | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Cooper's Hawk | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Red-breasted Sapsucker | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Downy Woodpecker | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Hairy Woodpecker | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Pileated Woodpecker | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Northern Flicker | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Olive-sided Flycatcher | 0 | 6 | 1 | 1 |
| Western Wood-pewee | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Willow Flycatcher | 13 | 23 | 2 | 7 |
| Hammond's Flycatcher | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Western Flycatcher | 16 | 79 | 3 | 16 |
| Warbling Vireo | 2 | 3 | 2 | 5 |
| Chestnut-backed Chickadee | 0 | 16 | 9 | 18 |
| Violet-green Swallow | 1 | 3 | 0 | 1 |
| Northern Rough-winged Swallow | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| Barn Swallow | 0 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| Bushtit | 4 | 17 | 0 | 21 |
| Red-breasted Nuthatch | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Brown Creeper | 3 | 12 | 1 | 3 |
| Northern House Wren | 3 | 12 | 3 | 13 |
| Pacific Wren | 5 | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| Bewick's Wren | 7 | 26 | 3 | 21 |
| Swainson's Thrush | 7 | 38 | 10 | 50 |
| American Robin | 0 | 10 | 1 | 9 |
| Cedar Waxwing | 1 | 14 | 0 | 3 |
| House Finch | 1 | 4 | 0 | 2 |
| Purple Finch | 9 | 30 | 5 | 34 |
| American Goldfinch | 73 | 143 | 0 | 16 |
| Chipping Sparrow | 3 | 10 | 1 | 8 |
| Oregon Junco | 1 | 1 | 5 | 7 |
| White-crowned Sparrow | 43 | 172 | 30 | 64 |
| Song Sparrow | 5 | 46 | 6 | 28 |
| Spotted Towhee | 7 | 29 | 9 | 42 |
| Red-winged Blackbird | 3 | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| Brown-headed Cowbird | 3 | 6 | 0 | 1 |
| Ovenbird | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Orange-crowned Warbler | 7 | 25 | 1 | 4 |
| MacGillivray's Warbler | 8 | 38 | 7 | 21 |
| Common Yellowthroat | 10 | 17 | 8 | 9 |
| Yellow Warbler | 10 | 60 | 1 | 3 |
| Wilson's Warbler | 25 | 107 | 5 | 30 |
| Western Tanager | 2 | 3 | 2 | 11 |
| Black-headed Grosbeak | 3 | 5 | 1 | 3 |
| Totals | 327 | 1008 | 156 | 506 |
Great banding updates! But...nothing at all in these blogs on obs/census?! Almost everyone writing these great weekly blogs each year for some reason tend to focus their efforts into summarizing banding highlights/weekly numbers, and skip out on writing anything comparable for weekly census/obs highlights, comparisons of numbers from year to year, etc! I'm always disappointed when I read to the end of a nice blog post summarizing the week's banding, and find nothing at all about all the things that could've been said from census/obs in the given week - which I'd argue consistently provides just as much if not more to write about!
ReplyDeletep.s. awesome Ovenbird :)
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