Almost a total washout!

We arrived at the site at 5:35 a.m. Saturday to open up the nets and deploy the two that we have to remove each week, following last year's vandalism. It was a muggy morning with heavy cloud cover and occasional fine drizzle. It should have been ideal for trapping birds, as there was virtually no wind, but even though the newly emergent growth continues towards full "leaf out," the nights have been too cool to allow insects to hatch. This lack of a good food supply means very few birds are attracted to the reserve. It also hasn't helped that the winds have been mainly from the north for most of the month, so the birds are bottled up along the shores of Lake Erie, awaiting favourable conditions to continue the journey north.

A total of twenty birds were banded between 6 a.m. and 9:45 a.m., at which point the rains arrived, forcing us to close up operations. It took less than a minute to soak us completely, and twenty minutes to close all nets, after which Georg and I enjoyed a beer and caught up on the Premier League scores! This week's picture is of a Common Yellowthroat, courtesy of Georg Hentsch.....as was the beer.....

Here's the list!

American Redstart 3
Least Flycatcher 1
Nashville Warbler 1
American Goldfinch 1
Common Yellowthroat 1
Yellow Warbler 3
Brown-headed Cowbird 1
White-throated Sparrow 1
Grey Catbird 5
Rose-breasted Grosbeak 3

There were two interesting retraps frm prior years. First was a Catbird, originally banded as an After Hatch Year bird (Euring code 4)on August 9th 2008, followed quickly by an American Goldfinch, first trapped on May 23rd, 2009 as a second year male (Euring code 5).

Sunday was a complete bust, with strong winds and frequent heavy showers, enabling your correspondent to remain in bed for once!The forecast looks quite reasonable for this (long) weekend (it's Victoria Day weekend, so can omly imagine the lineup to get into Pinery Provincial Park, scene of many happy banding adventures with "The Knob Jockeys."), so we are hoping for a good catch. Stay tuned......