Yesterday was exceedingly slow. Karen and I caught a grand total of 5 birds to show for a whole morning's worth of banding- 3 male Indigo Buntings, a Chipping Sparrow, and a Carolina Chickadee. This site, Macedonia, is definetly the least productive of the 5 we are running, but I'm hoping activity will pick up at least a little there within a few weeks, when more hatch year birds are around. The most interesting thing we observed yesterday was a very young White-tailed Deer fawn that was curled up in a patch of high grass near one of the nets. It remained in the same spot all morning, allowing me to snap a couple of quick photos.
Today we went to Tilley Bottoms, located in a somewhat dry, second-growth bottomland area near Reaubidoux Creek. A decent amount of bird activity, we ended up with 22 for the morning- 11 of which were caught late morning between 1010 and 1130. 7 of these 22 were recaptures from a previous year- a great recapture rate in my opinion. An Alder Flycatcher was still around and calling this morning, as well as all three species of regularly occuring eastern nightjars- Common Nighthawk, Chuck-will's-widow, and Whip-poor-will.
June 2, 2010 Tilley Bottoms
Bunting, Indigo 2
Cardinal, Northern 2
Chat, Yellow-breasted 3
Flycatcher, Acadian 1
Hummingbird, Ruby-throated 2
Parula, Northern 1
Thrush, Wood 1
Towhee, Eastern 1
Vireo, White-eyed 2
Warbler, Black-and-white 1
Warbler, Kentucky 1
Woodpecker, Downy 1
Wren, Carolina 3
Yellowthroat, Common 1
It is now absolutely pouring rain here in Devil's Elbow- a strong storm is coming in for the night and there is a possibility of hail later. The wind gusts were so strong a few minutes ago that one blew the apartment door wide open.
About Me
- Mike McCloy
- I'm Mike McCloy, a recent graduate from the Natural Resources Conservation and Management program at Western Carolina University who currently works as an Ecologist for an environmental consulting firm in Lawrenceville, Georgia. I have dabbled in seasonal/temporary ornithological field work through the lower 48 states in locations as diverse as Washington, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Missouri, Tennessee, and North Carolina. I was raised in a small town in eastern North Carolina and have been an avid birder and curious naturalist since I was a wee little chap of about five years old. Unsurprisingly, birding is the primary motivation behind most of my travels. However, I am becoming increasingly fascinated with other cultural aspects of international travel as and aim to incorporate more of these experiences into my travels and writings in the future. In addition, I hope to use this blog to inspire other travelers (particularly birders and nature enthusiasts) to pursue their dreams both professionally and along the road as well as provide helpful trips and tricks for traveling on a shoestring budget (as I often seem to do!).
In terms of birds captured, the Macedonia Cemetary site on June 1 (5) was a bummer but the Tilley Bottoms site on June 2 (22) was quite good. It will be interesting to see how the number of captures as well as bird species changes at your various sites as the breeding season progresses. I will construct a spread sheet from your excellent reporting.
ReplyDeleteWe've been having rain here in Southern Pines as well but without strong gusts and hail.
Dad