This week's Mansfield session marked VCE's fourth banding session on the
mountain in 2018. A crew of visitors, including a lively group from Otter
Creek Audubon, were treated to a solid assortment of mist-netted birds,
though fewer surprises than last week. Weather was cool and dry. The avian
nesting season is clearly in full swing, as females of all species showed
well-developed incubation/brood patches. Small groups of siskins are still
present on the ridgeline, though crossbill numbers seem reduced -- we
caught juveniles of both species. I did finally hear a distant Winter Wren
sing, but their abundance is distinctly low, as is that of Swainson's
Thrush (back to numbers of 10-20 years ago). We had our first red squirrel
sightings of the season, with two individuals. This year's cone crop is
non-existent -- I have yet to see a single fir or spruce cone.
Included among the 57 birds we captured on Tues-Wed:
Least Flycatcher 1 female with regressing brood patch
Red-breasted Nuthatch 1 male
Bicknell's Thrush 12 2 new yearling males, 10 within-season retraps
Swainson's Thrush 2 2 within-season retraps
American Robin 4 2 new, 2 within-season retrap
Blackpoll Warbler 11 4 new (3 males), 2 returns (male from 2016,
female from 2017), 5 within-season retraps
Black-throated Blue Warbler 1 female
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) 4 males: 1 new; 1 return from 2017, 2
retraps
Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored) 3 1 new female, 1 return male banded
as hatch-year on 2 Aug 17, 1 retrap
White-throated Sparrow 13 9 new (8 males, 1 female), 4 within-season
retraps
Purple Finch 1 new yearling male; we've now banded 8 this year vs. 1
in all of 2017
White-winged Crossbill 1 free-flying juvenile, flight feathers >85-90%
full-grown; likely a locally-hatched bird
Pine Siskin 2 free-flying juveniles
________________________
Chris Rimmer
Vermont Center for Ecostudies
PO Box 420 | Norwich, Vermont 05055
802.649.1431 x202
http://vtecostudies.org/
<http://vtecostudies.org/>
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