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. This switched our local winds from strong easterlies to calm at the surface and out of the west at higher levels. As a consequence, birds ready to migrate now were encouraged to depart and many of them ended up on our side of the Florida peninsula.
Adult female Black-and-white Warbler (photo by Miriam Avello)
We often start the season with 4 and 5 bird days, but so far this year we have banded between 12 to 17 birds a day, except for today. The peak of migration is still more than a month away, but some species start moving earlier. Black-and-white Warblers have been seen around Miami since July, and we have banded 14 of them so far. Nearly all of these individuals have been adults, as they often leave before the young of the year since they know where they are going and how to get there. Prairie Warblers have also been abundant, and American Redstarts picked up the pace in August. Louisiana Waterthrush, on the other hand, have one of the earliest migrations of any North American warbler species and they are almost completely past our area when we open in mid-August and are replaced by the more common and later migrating Northern Waterthrush. However, we usually can count on a couple of stragglers in late August.
Hatching-year female Prothonotary Warbler (photo by Miriam Avello)
Another favorite early migrant is the Prothonotary Warbler. We banded this hatching-year female on Aug 14, and had two others onsite today that were foraging in fruiting Ficus trees, but dodged the nets. Today was extremely hot with light west winds, and hopefully the 4 birds banded is a temporary interruption in the steady flow of migrants. Perhaps overnight rain to the north blocked the birds coming down Florida last night.
Hatching-year Red-bellied Woodpecker (Photo by Miriam Avello)
Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park is home to only a few resident breeding species of songbirds, as in general birds clear out of South Florida for the summer. We did manage to band this hatching-year Red-bellied Woodpecker, who is still too young to identify the sex.
