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