Last day of August

Today, the 31st of August, was my second day of banding at Powdermill! I woke up at 5.00 and got out of bed around 5.15. I had a shower and had some breakfast and around 6.00 I went in the direction of the banding station, a few hundred metres away from my cabin. While I was standing outside near the banding lab I saw a probable Least Bittern taking off from one of the ponds around 6.10. At 6.10 we started to open the nets and around 6.50 we did a first round. The first round was a good round with quite a few new birds, less recaps than yesterday. Every round we had quite some new birds. Just outside the lab I saw this cute little Chipmunk:

 Still at 11.30 we had a round of about 10 new ones. The morning wasn't cold at all, due to some cloud cover. This also meant that everything got warmed up fairly quickly. It was a bit humid outside, with a temperature of about 28 degrees celsius ( I'm not into Fahrenheit yet!) We ended the day with 122 individuals, of which 94 were new. The best birds today were 2 Blackburnian Warblers and a Yellow-billed Cuckoo!

The totals:

Yellow-billed Cuckoo 1 -
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 12 -
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher 1 -
Acadian Flycatcher 1 -
Least Flycatcher 3 -
Red-eyed Vireo 11 -
Gray Catbird 4 -
Chestnut-sided Warbler 4 -
Magnolia Warbler 2 -
Black-throated Blue Warbler 2 -
Black-throated Green Warbler 3 -
Blackburnian Warbler 2 -
American Redstart 7 -
Ovenbird 9 -
Common Yellowthroat 11 -
Hooded Warbler 10 -
Wilson's Warbler 2 -
Canada Warbler 1 -
Scarlet Tanager 2 -
Song Sparrow 4 -
Rose-breasted Grosbeak 2 -
Total 94, 21 species

Drew processing a Carolina Wren (Recap)

Mary on the left (Assistant at the station) and Helena and Lauren on the right (correct me if I have their names wrong haha)

The birds from today:

Ruby-throated Hummingbird, after-hatching year male; little stunners!

Chestnut-sided Warbler, hatching-year male

Blackburnian Warblers, both hatching-year, female (up) male (down)

Hooded Warbler, hatching-year male

Wilson's Warbler, male

Scarlet Tanager, hatching-year male

Carolina Wren, after hatching-year

And last but not least this great Yellow-billed Cuckoo, hatching-year!

In the afternoon me and Drew did some tightening of the net lanes but it was quite warm outside in the sun. I am now waiting for the Pileated Woodpecker to show up, maybe I can make some good photographs of the largest woodpecker of Northern America (unless the Ivory-billed isn't extinct!). 

See ya tomorrow!

Arrival and first day of banding at Powdermill!

Hi there!

Yesterday I had a long long travelling day. My flight at Schiphol departured at 10.50 and 8 hours later, 13.00 local time I arrived at Philadelphia Airport. At Philadelphia I had to check in my luggage again for my connecting flight to Pittsburgh. In the airplane to Philly the stewardesses cleary said to me that I had to pick up my luggage from the caroussel and re check it in. When I got off from the plane I had to go to the passport control. Apparently the guy from customs didn´t fully trust me because I had to go to a seperate room for second inspection! After 15 min or so I could go and then I found out that my luggage wasn´t on the caroussel. So I thought I´d lost it... Nevertheless I had to grab my flight to Pittsburgh, which I did. At the x ray and luggage check I got picked out again, this time the customs checked me ´randomly´ for drug samples on my hands, good! After they had checked me thoroughly I could proceed to my gate and without any problems I arrived in Pittsburgh, 38 minutes later. At the caroussel in Pittsburgh I was happy to find my suitcase, yay! Some time later Andrew, the banding coordinator of Powdermill, picked me up. He was unlucky, because on his way to the airport he got a flat tire, so he came a little later. From the airport it was still a 1,5/2 hour drive to Powdermill. Around 9 I arrived at my cabin, which is situated beautifully in the woods!

So this morning I got up at 6.00 and went to the banding station. At the banding station I met with Andrew, Mary, Heather, Amy and Lauren: some of the crew from the banding station. It was a beautiful but cold morning.

The area.

We had a good morning with over a 100 birds. 75 new ones and about 30 recaptures. Below you can see the numbers plus the species (only containing the new ones):

Ruby-throated Hummingbird 18 -
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher 3 -
Acadian Flycatcher 1 -
Alder Flycatcher 1 -
Least Flycatcher 1 -
Red-eyed Vireo 6 -
Black-capped Chickadee 2 -
Veery 1 -
Swainson´s Thrush 2 -
Wood Thrush 1 -
Gray Catbird 2 - (and about 10 recaps orso!!)
Chestnut-sided Warbler 2 -
Magnolia Warbler 1 -
Black-throated Blue Warbler 2 -
Black-throated Green Warbler 2 -
American Redstart 1 -
Ovenbird 2 -
Northern Waterthrush 1 -
Connecticut Warbler 1 - First of the year!
Common Yellowthroat 3 -
Hooded Warbler 14 -
Scarlet Tanager 1 -
Eastern Towhee 1 -
Rose-breasted Grosbeak 3 -
Indigo Bunting 1 -
Total 75, 25 species (excluding recaps)

Some pics of the American birds! :

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Red-eyed Vireo, hatched year

Red-eyed Vireo, adult

Veery

Black-throated Green Warbler, hatched year male

Connecticut Warbler, adulte male; day´s highlight!

Northern Waterthrush

Rose-breasted Grosbeak, hatched year male; awesome birds! They seem to love your fingers ;)

This afternoon I went to do some groceries shoppings in Ligonier, a town closeby, together with Andrew. On our way passed the Powdermill visitors centre where I met some nice people. On our way back we saw 6 Eastern Bluebirds which was nice. While I´m typing this blog post I see a beautiful Pileated Woodpecker foraging on a tree just outside my house! 

So this was it for today, many more pics from the nice crew & banding station will follow in later blog posts!

To the USA!

This morning I had my last ringing session for NL for the coming two months. We didn't trap a lot of birds, due to the rain and strong wind. Main birds caught were Blackcaps, with one carrying an unknown Dutch ring.

Tomorrow I'll be leaving for America for two months! I will fly to Philadelphia, and from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. All the flights to Philadelphia were canceled today because of the passing hurricane. Tomorrow the hurricane is over so I hope there will be no trouble for me.

I will be going to the Powdermill Avian Research Centre, situated in Pennsylvania. I will be helping at the ringing station for two months. I'm really looking forward to going there and experiencing the bird migration overseas. I've been to America before (New York), in 2009, but this will be a whole new experience, since I'll be there for the bird ringing!

A dull morning

Went ringing this morning again. We had 81m of net open. The only birds well represented were blackcaps, with 32 trapped and ringed. Other birds included 2 Garden Warblers, 2 Robins, 2 Blue Tits, 1 retrap Great Tit and  3 Chiffchaffs. So 42 in total. A total of 7 Tree Pipits landed in a tree next to the clapnet but didn't want to go on it. Further sightings included 3 Sparrowhawks, 1 male Goshawk, 3 Hobby's and a total of 20 Buzzards flying around.

Oh btw, one blackcap wasn't dull! It was a very extravagant individual with a bump on its chest (sticking out!!). The bump felt just like bone. It doesn't look as nasty as it sounds, the photo below will illustrate this;)

The famous 'handy' Blackcap

Clapnet succes!

Today we had a ringing session at Deventer. I had my alarmclock set on 4:30 but my bed felt so great that I stayed in my bed until 4:55.. so I had to hurry a bit and 15 minutes later we were in the car, heading to the ringing site. We had the nets opened from 6:00 till 12:30. Also, for the first time this fall we set up our clapnet again, in the hope of catching Green Sandpipers or maybe some Tree Pipits. The first rounds weren't too bad resulting in good numbers of Blackcaps and 6 Garden Warblers. On the clapnet I had tape on of Green Sandpipers and Tree Pipits. Around 7:45 I saw two Tree Pipits flying towards the clapnet, but they flew off and decided to sit in a hedge some 25m away from the clapnet. And unlike the last time, it didn't took much effort to trap these! Fairly soon one bird flew to the clapnet and landed on the edge. I could pull the cable but I decided to wait a bit longer... with result. Not much later the second bird landed perfectly on the grass in between the two nets and I was able to trap them both, what a blast :) The other highlight of the morning was a Spotted Flycatcher. Also I observed a Redstart, eager to avoid the net, which it did. After twelve we had another surpirse: a Lesser Whitethroat, the first for this site this year. Furthermore I had a net placed in our meadow, where our clapnet is located as well with tape of Swallows on. Quite a few Swallows came down but not low enough for the net. But while we were looking at the net a Hobby suddenly made a spectacular dive down to the tape and was heading towards the net... the bird just missed/avoided the net by a few centimeters, damn!

The results:
Tree Pipit 2 -
Wren - 1
Robin 4-1
Blackbird 2 -
Song Thrush 2 -
Reed Warbler 2 -
Lesser Whitethroat 1 -
Blackcap 26 -
Garden Warbler 5 - 1
Chiffchaff 11 - 2
Blue Tit 4 - 1
Great Tit 5- 3
Marsh Tit - 1
Spotted Flycatcher 1 -
Chaffinch 1 -
Short-Toed Treecreeper - 1
Nuthatch - 1

Total 66-12= 78
17 species

 Tree Pipit first calenderyear (nr.1)

Tree Pipit nr.2 also first calenderyear. 

Lesser Whitethroat, 1cy

Spotted Flycatcher, 1cy

Die-hard ringing at Ooijse Graaf 15-18 August

Sunday evening the 14th of August I arrived at Bram in Nijmegen because we were going to ring at his site, the Ooijse Graaf near Nijmegen for a couple of days, if weather permitted. The weather turned out to be great (in contrast to the past two weeks before) and so did the number of birds! In 4 days time we ringed a total of 575 birds. It was a fantastic week!

Monday 15-08-11

This was the first ringing session of the week. We had 102 metres of net opened, mainly in the reedbed. During the ringing we had an calling Serin overhead, which was a nice surprise!
The results:

And below a shot of a 1cy Male Bluethroat:

Tuesday 16-08-11

This was the second ringing session. The first round was very busy with more than 100 birds. Soon after the first round it went a bit quiet so we stopped a bit earlier. The highlights of today were a Nightingale, a Water Rail, a Redstart and a Reed Warbler with a Stockholm-ring!
Results below:

Some photos of today:

A 1cy Nightingale, not a common catch at the Ooij!

My father, Tammo, had the luck to grab a Water Rail out of a mistnet, he probably flushed it into the net.

A 1cy female Redstart, also a sporadic visitor in the mistnets.

In addition, we captured a Smooth Newt!

Wednesday 16-08-11

The third day of ringing. It was somewhat similar to the day before, but with less Reed Warblers. Around 10.45 a rare bird showed up in the net: a Jynx Torquilla! An Icterine Warbler was the other highlight of today plus an abberant Sedge Warbler.

Some photos of today:

One of three Grashopper Warblers today

Comments on this bird are welcome, is this 1cy Sedge Warbler just a bit diluted?

1cy Icterine Warbler

And... last but not least this stunning Wryneck!

Thursday 18-08-11

This was the last ringing morning. The reed birds were represented in good numbers! 2 Savi's Warblers, 7 Sedge Warbler containing a foreign control: Stavanger and 4 Grashopper Warblers (4 is the record).

Again some photos:

Savi's Warbler nr. 1

Savi's Warbler nr. 2

Together!

Even more pic's will definitively follow later!