• Both species total and diversity went up from last week with 381 birds of 41 species being banded this week.  Ruby-throated Hummingbirds were again the top species with 69 banded.  Four species were added to our season list: Blue-headed Vireo, Nashville Warbler, Chipping Sparrow, and Grasshopper Sparrow.

• We added two more Blackburnian Warblers to our fall totals this week.  This hatch year female pictured below was banded on August 26th.  Comparing with our female posted on the website at the beginning of the month (see past pictorial highlights), this bird was even duller.  With both species frequenting similar habitats in migration, the dullest fall female Blackburnians, with their whitish eyeline and wingbars and their white to pale buff underparts, actually can be confused with fall Cerulean Warblers.  Blackburnian Warblers have a proportionately longer tail and more defined head pattern (darker cheek patch).  If seen well enough, the immature female Blackburnian shows pale lines down the sides of the back and blurry black streaks across the back that Cerulean Warbler's lack.

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• On Friday, August 27th, we added one of our four new species for the fall.  This hatching year female Nashville Warbler (photo below) had little contrast between the gray hindneck and an equally grayish back, contrasting with a fairly bright greenish yellow rump, suggesting the possibility of its being an individual from the more westerly race, Vermivora ruficapilla ridgwayi.

• Also on Friday, we banded this second year (SY) male Rose-breasted Grosbeak.  Specifically, we posted this bird to show the molt limit created by his yet to be prebasically molted (retained juvenal) middle secondaries.  HY/SY males retain the majority of their juvenal flight feathers, like most other passerines, until their 2nd prebasic (fall) definitive molt.  This bird, with a molt score of 72 out of a possible 90 (based on scores from 0-5 of primaries and secondaries where 0 = old unmolted feather and 5 = molted and fully grown feather), has nearly completed its definitive prebasic molt and has only its last three juvenal flight feathers (secondaries 4-6) to replace.  If these had already been dropped when we caught the bird, there would have been no way to distinguish this bird as being an SY or an ASY, and it would have to be recorded simply as an AHY.

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• Finally, we end this week's short but sweet update with photo highlights from one of our other new species for the fall season.  A hatching year Grasshopper Sparrow was banded on Saturday, August 28th.  This was the 22nd year we have ever caught a GRSP and only the 14th fall season with one on record, with all of the captures only ever being one or two birds.  In the earlier years the totals were a little higher because habitat in the immediate banding area was more open, but even then, we have never banded in the double digits of GRSP.  Needless to say, this one little bird made our day--our week for that matter!

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Last Updated on 09/04/04
By Adrienne J. Leppold