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21 October 2017

     Miriam and I have just returned from a fabulous trip to Slovenia and Croatia and we are still getting over our jet lag. We have thousands of pictures to sort through and edit, so it will be a while before a full report of our trip is up on the blog. In the meantime, I was back at our normal routine of bird banding at SpruceHaven this morning.

     It was good to see everyone, with our regular crew of Kevin Grundy, Heather Polan, Daina Anderson, Judy Wyatt and Debbie Hernandez out to help. Heather and Daina were both kept busy banding, while Kevin exercised his usual professional level of supervision, and shared his expertise gained over many years with the young up and comers.

Daina banding a Dark-eyed Junco

    Our first capture of the day was a Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata). My camera (or more than likely, me) was unable to get a decent shot in the relatively poor light of early morning, but Debbie produced this image on her smart phone.

     She was equally successful with a White-throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis).

     It is amazing the quality that can be produced on these state-of-the-art mobile devices.

     Both Golden-crowned Kinglets (Regulus satrapa) and Ruby-crowned Kinglets (Regulus calendula) were moving through in substantial numbers and we trapped several of each.

     It looks as though Heather is adding to her wrist adornments!

     The most common species of the morning was Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis) of the slate-coloured form, recently arrived to take up residence here for the winter.

     Heather had to depart early today to attend a significant family event, and Daina left off banding for a while to take over as scribe.

     Judy handled the clerical duties for a while too, as far as I can recall the first time she has done so, but I neglected to take a picture of her busy at work.

     It was a great morning to be banding, with slowly warming temperatures, although we never did have bright sunshine. What a pleasure to see everyone out, filled with enthusiasm for the task at hand. It reminded me that however agreeable the travels, it's always good to be back home.

All species banded: Blue Jay (1), Black-capped Chickadee (1), Golden-crowned Kinglet (7), Ruby-crowned Kinglet (5), Song Sparrow (5), White-crowned Sparrow (1), White-throated Sparrow (2), Dark-eyed Junco (9).  Total: 31 individuals representing 8 species.