More net repairs and where are the migrants?

While I'm really out there to do my spring cleaning (mostly clearing trails and net lanes and repairing nets) I also like to see what is coming through.  So, I leave the nets open as I work and check them frequently.  However, apparently I don't need to check them much at all because no one is volunteering.  Today I captured a female Blue Jay and recaptured a female Tufted Titmouse.  And that was it.  I'm not hearing a whole lot of other birds other than the residents.  I still haven't seen or heard a Yellow-rumped Warbler!  My fellow banders around the state are echoing the same refrain.

If I'm only going to catch two birds I can't complain if one is a Blue Jay.  Despite their reputations as bullies and feeder hogs no one can deny that they are pretty birds.  And this picture seems to indicate she has the attitude to prove it.

While Tufted Titmice aren't the flashy birds that Blue Jays are they more than make up for it in spunk.  This one never relaxed for its picture while trying to teach me a lesson for catching it again.  It was originally banded last year in May.

While neither the male nor the female graced my nets today the pair of Eastern Phoebes that nest on the front porch lights are back this year and and the female has been sitting on eggs, effectively banishing me from the porch for the next few months.

I was interested in how many eggs she was brooding.  So, when she flew off at one point I checked to see how many there were and noticed one felt larger than the others.  My suspicions were confirmed when I snapped this picture of the interior of the nest.  The speckled egg at the bottom of the picture belongs to a brown-headed cowbird.  There was a broken cowbird egg on the floor beneath the nest that the female phoebe had discarded.  Unfortunately, she somehow missed this one.

I am not at liberty to comment on the fate of the cowbird egg in the nest.

One of my favorite plants is up and growing in the bog.  The sundew is a plant that is especially adapted to live in the acidic environment of a sphagnum bog.  Due to the very low levels of nitrogen because of the acidic pH some plants have evolved strategies to overcome this limitation.  They capture insects and eat them!  The leaves of the sundew have hair-like projections that are tipped with a sticky sap that attracts and captures insects.  Then as the insects decompose the plant absorbs the nitrogen rich proteins the insects are made up of.

Notable birds seen but not captured (just about anything) included Belted Kingfisher, Winter Wren, White-throated Sparrow, and a Wild Turkey that almost sent me into cardiac arrest when it flew out from its ground roost a mere ten or so feet from me.

My next banding day will be Thursday (4/29) weather permitting.  Hope to see you out there.