November 2, 2021
By Michelle Davis
The west winds blowing for the last few days did not bring Cape Florida any great numbers of birds as hoped, but a few new faces appeared in the nets. We banded several Eastern Phoebes, a common wintering flycatcher. Three Wood Thrush were a treat, and we banded one Myrtle Warbler but nobody took a picture of it. Myrtle Warblers are just barely arriving in our area when we close for the season, and most years we don’t catch any but occasionally a flock will find the nets.
The main reason we close the Station so early in November is because there normally is a gap between when the Neotropical migrants pass through and the wintering birds arrive, and we catch very little. Nice fronts sweep through but there are few birds moving on them. This is sort of what happened with the last front and we caught fewer than 20 birds on the first day with west winds. However, the diversity has been fairly good and we got a Whip-poor Will on Sunday. Gray Catbirds and Black-throated Blue Warblers have been the dominant species.
Eastern Phoebe by Miriam Avello
Eastern Phoebe by Steffanie Munguia
Whip-poor-will by Miriam Avello
Whip-poor Will showing camouflaged plumage (photo by Miriam Avello)
