Banding at Forest Hill, 20 May

On Thursday 20 May my class and I went to Forest Hill Nature Area, the school district’s environmental interpretive center.  We were doing a banding demo for several classes of fourth graders from nearby Ithaca.  We had six nets positioned around the wetland that dominates the property.  As the main purpose of the morning was to perform show-and-tell with the birds for the classes and since I only do demos there every other year or so I don’t generally band most of the birds I capture there.  So, the list of captures is largely unbanded individuals.

We had a very good morning (sunny, warm, no wind) and got to show the students a nice variety of the typical resident birds commonly found in the farm fields and wet meadows that make up our area.  There were 40 captures of 18 species of which 14 were new and 26 were unbanded.

The biggest surprise of the morning was a White-crowned Sparrow.  Generally, these are long gone by early May much less mid-month.  A female Eastern Bluebird was fun simply because I never catch them although they are quite common.  The Warbling Vireo is also a common nester at Forest Hill but is another one I don’t catch very often.

My students had a good time showing off their new found skills to a rapt audience.  And the fourth graders were, no doubt, just glad to be out of the classroom for the day!

Here’s the list:

Willow Flycatcher  2 N

Warbling Vireo  1 U

House Wren  2 U

Eastern Bluebird  1 U

Swainson’s Thrush  1 N

American Robin  1 N

Gray Catbird 2 U

Blue-winged Warbler 1 U

Yellow Warbler  3 U

Magnolia Warbler  2 U

Mourning Warbler  1 N

Common Yellowthroat  5 N,  2 U

Swamp Sparrow  1 U

Song Sparrow  2 U

White-crowned Sparrow  1 U

Red-winged Blackbird  1 N,  2 U

American Goldfinch  3 U

House Sparrow  3 N,  2 U