PICTORIAL HIGHLIGHTS, WEEK OF 8/08/01-8/13/01


Notable features of this week's banding were increased numbers of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds moving through the banding area, and very good numbers of Traill's Flycatchers and Northern Waterthrushes (9 and 8 banded, respectively, on 8/11 alone).  At Powdermill we do not use feeders to attract hummingbirds or feeder traps to catch and band them.  All of the hummingbirds that we band are caught during usual mist netting operations, being attracted at this time of year by native hummingbird flowers like Spotted Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis; left) and Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis; right), which bloom profusely in the vicinity of several of our net lanes.

All four Swainson's Thrushes banded this week were adult birds in various stages of prebasic molt.

SWTH does not nest any closer than about 150 km from Powdermill, and the migration of the species occurs mostly in September, so these late summer/early fall birds likely represent individuals that departed the breeding grounds prior to molting and which then moved substantial distances before the onset or progress of their molt necessitated a protracted stopover.  Such SWTH often are recaptured several times during the course of their molt-stopover at Powdermill.  Cherry (1985) published a short article on this phenomenon in the Wilson Bulletin (vol. 97, pp. 368-370).

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