May 5, 2023

April was a busy month for people at the Banding Station as we hosted Outdoor Afro, Tropical Audubon, and Boy Scout Troop 314, as well as independent visitors from as far away as Poland. We showed birds in the hand to dozens of local Key Biscayne residents and potential new birders at the inaugural Marius Robinson Bird Festival, held on April 23 in Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park. Visitors braved the nasty mosquito outbreak to see a nice selection of catbirds, warblers and buntings.

April 11, 2023

Migration slowed down to a trickle after an auspicious first week of banding. We banded or recaptured only 0 to 6 birds a day almost every day for the last two weeks.

March 26, 2023

The pace of migration through Cape Florida has slowed down this week, as easterly winds have pushed the migrating birds to the west side of the peninsula.

March 19, 2023

Migration is already well underway as we opened for the Spring season last week. We were greeted by west winds, warm temperatures, and a diversity of warblers at the site.

November 5, 2022

We are in the tail end of fall migration, and most of the birds we banded this week were probably snowbirds settling in for a winter in South Florida.

October 30, 2022

Nothing lasts forever, and the Fall 2022 banding season is coming to a close. Bird activity has slowed down a lot since the peak on October 19.

October 21, 2022

This last front delivered as promised. It was passing all day on October 19, and the day actually got cooler as it wore on, dropping down to a bone-chilling 63 degrees by the afternoon. Thick cloud cover and a light intermittent rain accompanied WNW winds, and the birds came in strong.

October 15, 2022

The Cape Florida Banding Station’s inaugural day was on October 5, 2002, and we banded 23 birds of 9 species. We usually like to start in the middle of August, but we were waiting on one final permit to be issued before we could start the first season. We marked the exact 20th Anniversary on October 5, 2022, with 10 birds of 7 species (but one was this gorgeous Summer Tanager), and a few more gray hairs on my head.

October 4, 2022

The edge of Hurricane Ian tread lightly on the CFBS and we were back open on September 29, with only a few branches to pick up across some of the net lanes. The birds around appeared to have ridden out the storm onsite, as we caught a good percentage of recaptures and the species composition was similar to what we had before Ian.

September 28, 2022

We reached a milestone on Sunday, September 25 while the Phoebes women’s birding group was

visiting the station- the 1,000 th bird banded this season!

September 18, 2022

Since the last blog post on Sept 8, we have banded 475 additional birds in what is turning out to be one of the busiest mid-September periods in years. A front moved into Central Florida last week, where it then stalled out and dissipated over a few days.

September 8, 2022

Migration has finally gained a little momentum as we are already a week into September. South Florida is currently underneath a high pressure system giving us very hot, still mornings. Rain is forecast for the next few days and the wind may change to the S-SW in response to low pressure in the Gulf, so we will see what the weather change will bring.

August 24, 2022

We have settled into a more typical August pattern of easterly winds with a small but steady stream of birds passing through Cape Florida. Daily totals have ranged from nothing to 20 birds, and in the past week we added two new species for the season.

August 17, 2022

We opened for our 20th year of Fall banding on Sunday Aug 14, and are off to a great start! Persistent high pressure over the Atlantic seaboard gave way to a trough and a front that came down to the Florida border before dissipating.

May 17, 2022

We officially had three more days of banding following the 100-bird day on May 12, but there was enough interest in keeping the station open a couple extra days so we banded until May 17.

May 12, 2022

The Spring 2022 season will long be remembered for the fantastic May we are having. The large-scale weather pattern reversed itself from the late April shutdown, and the persistent high pressure over the Atlantic seaboard was replaced with a low pressure off the coast of the mid-Atlantic. Ahead of this feature a decaying ‘cold’ front passed through our area around May 8.

May 3, 2022

The peak days of spring migration in late April featured continuing strong easterly winds, and the majority of migrating birds were blown to the west of us; coming up through Cape Sable and Southwest Florida. We have heard this story a lot in the last two years.

April 10, 2022

After nearly 2 weeks of lackluster migration, birds were on the move again and westerly winds brought them out to Key Biscayne in good numbers! Friday, April 8 started out as another slow day, although the overnight rain and morning temperature was refreshing after a stretch of humid 90-degree summertime days, courtesy of strong southerly winds.

March 30, 2022

The cold front last Friday (March 25) brought a squall line through the area in the predawn hours that then moved offshore after sunrise with cloudy but benign conditions afterwards. We were treated to our first real influx of migrants as Prairie Warblers, Western Palm Warblers, Northern Parulas and Black & White Warblers filled the sky with chip notes as they settled into the canopy.

March 23, 2022

The first couple of weeks we are open in late March are typically slow bird-wise, as the bulk of the migrants are yet to come. Northern Parulas, however, have already started to come through in several waves in late February and early March before we opened. Prairie Warblers, Common Yellowthroats and Louisiana Waterthrush are currently on the move, and we caught a few of each over the weekend.