Nov 7, 2021
The Fall 2021 banding season ended with some beautiful weather and a dwindling amount of migrants. We caught more recaptures than new birds over the last two days, including two worm-eating warblers that appear to be making Cape Florida their winter home. The very last bird captured on Sunday was this female Black-and-white Warbler that was originally banded in Fall 2020.
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.
October 25, 2021
Today we were rained out after only being open for a couple of net runs and banding one Gray-cheeked Thrush and a Gray Catbird so here is the daily total from yesterday. This day was pretty typical of how the last week and a half has been going, with easterly winds prevailing and a trickle of birds coming through. These winds have died down a bit and are supposed to switch around to westerly and increase throughout this week so we will see if anything new comes in.
Our fortunes changed over the weekend as thousands of migrating birds moved through South Florida, giving us several interesting days at the banding station. Saturday was quiet and hot, but Sunday dawned much cooler with a light northwest wind blowing. And the birds arrived!
It is always interesting how each consecutive day during a rush of migrants can have such different species compositions. Sunday October 10 was the most diverse of the last 3 days, with 78 birds banded of 18 species and four new species for the season. Today had twice the numbers, but with only 16 species. American Redstarts were dominant on Oct 10, and the Black-throated Blue Warblers arrived in force today with 65 banded! The 1,000th bird banded of the Fall 2021 season was a Swainson’s Warbler, of all things.
Oct 8 2021
By Michelle Davis
The winds have not been in our favor for the past week, and we are still crawling towards the 1,000th capture of the season. However, we are collecting some good data on recaptured birds: birds banded earlier this season that are remaining onsite to replenish their fat reserves while waiting for a good time to depart. Our favorite recent recapture is this adult male Hooded Warbler, originally banded on Sept 25 weighing 10.7 g. He was recaptured on Oct 1 and had added quite a bit of fat, weighing in at 12.3 g or so. We heard him chinking in the same area between several nets for a couple of more days, so he had a good stopover at Cape Florida for at least a week.
The number of birds captured each morning has tapered off from the high of 69 birds on Sept 24 to 13 new birds on Sept 29. A handful of individuals have been recaptured during the last week as birds wait for better winds to depart. The rain has diminished and the humidity is lower, making for nice mornings at the banding station, but the wind direction has swung around to the Northeast. This is the least productive wind direction to bring migrants to Cape Florida, and the forecast of at least another week of these winds (with them getting stronger tomorrow and Saturday) is discouraging, to say the least. This time period around Oct 1 can be some of our most diverse banding days of the whole season. Still, even though numbers are low, we are seeing some new species in the nets and hearing others that remain uncaptured.
A weak dissipating front drifted down the Florida peninsula overnight, and we were greeted to a lot of birds flying over and dropping in. The first net run had 17 birds in it (more than some entire days) including our first-of-season Western Palm Warbler. Many more were in the sky overhead along with dozens of Bobolinks. On the ground we had a Common Yellowthroat and Ovenbird invasion first thing, with American Redstarts picking up the pace later in the morning.
We banded 5 Swainsons’ Warblers today, one away from the record 6 in one day from quite some years back. I love these birds with their huge spike bills and vibrating motion as they toss through leaf litter in search of insects. This lurking species is on a lot of birder’s want list, and South Florida during migration is one of the few places where they can sometimes be common.
Although we still haven’t had a 50+ bird day yet, we are closing in on 550 birds banded for the season and several new species have arrived in the last week. Our top day for numbers so far was on Sept 11, with 45 birds banded of 10 species. A little pulse of Cape May Warblers came through that weekend, and we banded 4 in total while many more were seen onsite and around the county. Some falls we don’t see many Cape Mays at all, so this year they seem to be abundant and are arriving down here somewhat early.
The last few days have featured light westerly winds and the birds have been slowly increasing in numbers, with a 41-bird high on Sept 4. Today we woke up to humid conditions and birds in the air. We caught nothing for the first couple of net runs, and then some birds finally settled into the woods. Bobolinks continued to flow overhead for a large part of the morning. On the ground we had diversity today, with 10 species represented among our 17 captures. Several of these birds were very fat, including a Louisiana Waterthrush weighing in at 27.5 grams! These guys usually weigh around 20 grams so he was carrying quite the fat load.
As August rolls into September our species diversity is slowly climbing. We have added Chuck-will’s Widow and Traill’s flycatcher to the roster, while the pace of the Caribbean-wintering warblers is picking up. Today we banded 19 new birds of 8 species and captured one returning Ovenbird, banded in Fall 2020. The star of the day (OK the week) is this young Canada Warbler. We only have banded 11 others out of 40,000 birds so they are not very common here at all.
The weather cleared up this week and the winds continued out of the east, making for a slow trickle of birds coming south. Most days we caught only between 2 to 5 birds, including young Northern Cardinals that are exploring the woods and stumbling into the nets that their savvy uncaptured parents know are there. A second Louisiana Waterthrush and two Prothonotary Warblers were nice captures, as these species are early migrants that will already be on their wintering grounds by September. In the old days the Prothonotary was known as the Golden Swamp Warbler, and they can be found breeding as close by as Big Cypress.
We were able to band most of the morning of August 15, 2021 under cloudy and drizzly conditions, and started the season with 9 birds of 6 species! Our first capture was an adult male American Redstart and # 2 was a Louisiana Waterthrush, a very early migrant that first arrives in our region in July. Migration seems to be well underway at this time, and interesting birds are being reported around South Florida. The pace of migration will accelerate, slowly at first and with more momentum in September, reaching a peak in numbers and diversity between late September and mid-October.
