Banding at ACBO, 1 June

Tuesday, 1 June, was the official start of the field season at the Vestaburg Station of the ACBO.  We ran the ten nets around the bog with hopes that we would get the first Veery volunteers for our breeding season telemetry project study.  We heard Veery but none ventured in to the nets.  Neither did much else for that matter.

We had a total of nine individuals of six species of which seven were new and two were recaps.

The most exciting bird was the Yellow-bellied Flycatcher.

This is a species I don’t catch very often at all and nests much further north than here (UP north).  On the property we have nesting Acadian Flycatcher which are sometimes confused with Yellow-bellied.  However, while Acadians have a yellowish wash to the underparts the Yellow-bellied is unmistakably “lemony”.  As my mentor from Texas said, “if you have to imagine that it is yellow enough to be a Yellow-bellied, then it isn’t.  When you have a Yellow-bellied you will know it.”  Besides that, they are just cuter than an Acadian!

One of the Hairy Woodpeckers was our first Hatching Year bird for the year.  You’ll notice in the photos below the adult male has the characteristic red markings at the back of the crown that indicate his sex. 

However, the HY bird has red on the head, but on the mid-crown not the back.

This is a female and she is showing the red head feathers all young Hairy’s (and Downy’s) exhibit before their first pre-basic molt.  By fall this bird will have a completely dark head like an adult female.

The American Robin and Brown-headed Cowbird recaptures were both birds banded last summer.

Here are the totals:

Hairy Woodpecker  2 N

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher  1 N

Wood Thrush  2 N

American Robin  1 N,  1 R

Gray Catbird  1 N

Brown-headed Cowbird  1 R