Brotherly Love Greenlet, AKA Philadelphia Vireo (Photo by Nasim Mahomar)
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. Winds ahead of the storm were unfavorable for departure as they were out of the southeast. The backside of Ian was dry and featured winds out of the north and northwest; excellent conditions for bird migration. Overnight radar on the nights of Sept 29 and 30 showed a mass of birds moving down the peninsula that were probably blocked by the heavy rain from Ian across north-central Florida, and could finally resume their flight under clear skies once the storm passed. This bulge of migrants reached us by October 1, and we banded 105 birds of 16 species!
American Redstart; our top capture at this point with 310 banded as of Oct 3 (photo by Miriam Avello )
The physical condition of the birds was variable; most had excellent fat loads and clearly had ridden out the storm hunkered down somewhere safe on land, while others were very emaciated and may have been caught out at sea. A Connecticut Warbler was especially lean; these normally migrate from the mid-Atlantic offshore down to South America without stopping in Florida, but she may have had to bail out because of the storm. She used up all her fat reserves and was burning up her own flight muscles to stay alive and flying, but she made it to land with food and good cover. We recaptured her the next day and she had already gained one gram of weight. High-quality stopover habitat such as found at BBCFSP will make the difference between life and death for a bird such as this.
New species for the season that have come in on the cooler dryer air include these guys:
Connecticut Warbler; an uncommon but regular spring migrant but very rare in fall (photo by Miriam Avello)
Another view of the Philadelphia Vireo, banded Oct 3 (photo by Bob Warren)
Gray Catbird, a sure sign of winter coming in South Florida. (photo by Bob Warren)
Western Palm Warbler, another sign of winter in South Florida (photo by Miriam Avello)
Bobolink; a common migrant but only the second one we have banded in 20 years. They fly overhead and prefer to land in large open fields, but a falcon may have scared this young bird down into the woods (photo by Nasim Mahomar)
