On February 15, we actually went to 2 Painted Bunting sites that are on the same street. We caught 2 at one location and recaptured 1 at the other. High winds were a problem so we are glad we caught what we did. We also banded a Northern Cardinal with a broken beak. Other than the beak problem, the bird appeared to be fine and healthy. It is managing! We also had two House Sparrows.
Painted Bunting - male
Northern Cardinal with broken beak
On February 19, we banded at Possum Long and made up a little for the recent low number of buntings banded. We banded 3 Painted Buntings and a Downy Woodpecker. We also recaptured an Ovenbird and a Northern Cardinal.
Painted Bunting
Downy Woodpecker
One fun non-bird observation was our resident Gopher Tortoise chomping on the grass in one of our lanes where we put up our net! Always fun to see a Gopher Tortoise!
Gopher Tortoise
On February 20, we went to a new site where 5 buntings had been reported. This site is close to another one and we are hoping to see if there are any visitations back and forth. We banded 3 greens (a female and 2 young birds) and almost caught the one reported male. Now the hosts at this site can observe their feeder to see if they may actually have more unbanded birds or if they see banded birds from the nearby site. We will likely return here.
Our regularly occurring session at Possum Long brought us visitors. We had a home school group visit to learn about bird banding. We were able to show them some of the birds we caught today. We banded a new Northern Parula and Gray Catbird.
Northern Parula
Photo by Linda Wishney
We also had a few recaptures. One was a Yellow-rumped Warbler that was originally banded on December 1, 2015. At that time we determined it was an adult male. That means the bird is at least 3 years old and possibly older. The other recaptured birds were recently banded but had remained on the property.
Next regularly scheduled banding at Possum Long will be on Tuesday, February 28. Nets go up at 6:45.
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