Songbird Banding at Whitefish Point

Our second week of the class (10 - 13 May) took us to Whitefish Point in the Upper Peninsula.  We went there to observe the owl banding program at Whitefish Point Bird Observatory.  At night we would visit with the owl banders and view the Northern Saw-whet Owls they were capturing, banding and releasing.  Then during the day we would run our five nets in the jack pines along the shore of Whitefish Bay.

As usual we had several very busy day of banding while we were there.  Conditions were perfect with low winds (always unusual for the Point) and no rain.  Because the bird observatory has feeding stations near the banding office many of the migrating birds spend the day stoking their furnaces with sunflower seeds.  Naturally, our nets intercepted many of them as they were having breakfast.  It is a great place for the students to gain experience recovering birds from the nets.

We had a total of 92 individuals of 13 species of which 90 were new and two were recaptures. This year Chipping sparrows and White-throated Sparrows tied for the most frequently captured species at 24 individuals each.  Blue Jays were a close second at 18.  The two recaptures were a Chipping sparrow banded on Monday and recaptured on Wednesday and a Sharp-shinned Hawk.  The sharpie was banded by a hawk bander operating traps just down the road from our location less than a quarter of a mile.  I eventually determined that he had banded it the previous week.

Warblers were still in short supply, though we did catch some lookers.  These included Nashville, Palm, Yellow-rumped and Black-throated Blue Warblers.  Probably the best bird of the week was a Clay-colored Sparrow mixed in among the numerous Chipping Sparrows.

Here is the catch:

Sharp-shinned Hawk  1 N,  1 R
Blue Jay  18 N
Black-capped Chickadee  4 N
Nashville Warbler  2 N
Yellow-rumped Warbler  3 N
Palm Warbler  2 N
Black-throated Blue Warbler  1 N
Chipping Sparrow  24 N,  1 R
Clay-colored Sparrow  1 N
White-throated Sparrow  24 N
White-crowned Sparrow  10 N
Red-winged Blackbird  1 N
Common Grackle  1 N