Week 6: Eyes on The Horizon

Week 6 of Rocky Point Bird Observatory's Migration Monitoring Program has come to an end and we are back with another blog post. We faced some challenges this week with several staff members falling ill, but with the help of our healthy crew and many dedicated volunteers we pushed through to have a productive week of songbird banding. 

Our first Ruby-crowned Kinglet of the season at Rocky Point! (Gaelin Armstrong)

While the last 7 days did not bring many unusual catches there are plenty of things to catch up on. 276 birds were caught at Rocky Point and 150 at Pedder Bay, a similar pace to Week 5, which brings us to a total of 1501 birds banded at Rocky and 862 at Pedder! Lincoln's Sparrow and Fox Sparrow both continued to grow in numbers at both sites providing a nice change of pace and hinting at exciting things to come as migration unfolds. Week 6 also saw the first Black-throated Grey Warbler captured at Pedder Bay and the first Ruby-crowned Kinglet at Rocky Point for the 2026 season!

A newly arrived Fox Sparrow banded at Pedder Bay (Jannaca Chick)

Notable observations from the stations included Caspian Tern and our first Horned Lark of the year at Rocky Point on August 24th. Staff and volunteers are still enjoying sporadic sightings of both Wolves and Elk at Rocky with the occasional Orca as well. Columbian Black-tailed Deer are being seen at both sites with several fawns frequenting the area right behind the banding station at Pedder!

The first and only Black-throated Grey Warbler banded at Pedder Bay so far this year (Jannaca Chick)

Staff and volunteers alike eagerly await whatever migration has in store for us in the back-half of the fall and are looking forward to what is often our “busy season” here in the coming weeks. Our up-to-date banding totals can be found in the table below and for more information and highlights check out our socials @rockypointbird. We'll be back next week with another update!