Banding quality, if not quantity

Brand new I and the Bird #99 at Migrations. I’ll be handling to the next one over at the Nature Blog Network Blog.

Lately we’ve been doing a lot of banding out at the Prairie Ridge Ecostation. Well, I should clarify, I’ve been doing a lot of banding. Mostly because Becky at the museum finally took my mournful call for Tuesday banding sessions to heart so that I can help out. Good for me, because banding is fun and this time of year there’s a good chance that lots of interesting migrants might find their way into the nets.

The banding was a little slow on this session though. There was a stiff breeze most of the morning and when the mist nets are blowing around it’s easier for the birds to see and avoid. Even though the total numbers were down we got some cool stuff, not least of which this Brown Thrasher who was fairly non-plussed at our attempts to age him.

But Thrashers are resident breeders and it was migrants we were most interested in. They offer the most opportunity for potential information if they get picked up further along their route. And they’re just plain cool. Prairie Ridge is exceptionally good for sparrows, which was proven once again when a net along the grassy ridge produced this really cool Grasshopper Sparrow.

Grasshopper Sparrows nest in the broader area in hayfields further away from busy roads. Prairie Ridge lies far too close to I-40 for their liking, the road noise tends to drown out their buzzy song. Maybe one of these days one will find a way around that, but for now, there’s little chanse a wayward female would notice even a loud individual because of the highway. A cool bird nonetheless.

But the best bird of the day was still to come. I mentioned last time I went banding that I’d seen my first Orchard Oriole of the year a couple weeks ago. I had hoped we’d end up with one in the net. While walking around We saw no fewer than three singing males and it wasn’t long before one turned up in the net, along with a female it had been chasing. What a beauty!

This guy was so hopped up on testosterone he started singing as soon as I pulled him out of the bag to process him at the banding station. Either he knew the female was being processed nearby and decided to make a little time while he could or his brain was so addled that singing was the only thing he could possibly do. In any case, it was an excellent experience with a great bird. And with the high concentration of Orchard Orioles in the area, it’s probably a near certainty they’ll be nesting at Prairie Ridge this year for the first time.

We didn’t get much else, a Catbird, a couple re-captured White-throated Sparrows fat and ready to head out soon, and a pair of female Brown-headed Cowbirds that sorely tested our devotion to scientific integrity, so we took down the nets well before noon. But what we may have lacked in quantity, we made up for in really cool birds.