Sharpie!

A first of the season was trapped today, nothing less than a Sharp-shinned Hawk. Brandon had flushed a Sharpie this morning while opening the Backfield nets so when we went back for a first round Brandon checked the Backfield again and.. as you might guess he came back with the Sharp-shinned! Awesome! It was a young female with a wing of 206. The maximum wing length of a male SSH is 183, so this was an obvious female. In fact, Powdermill only gets males (there are exceptions apparently) as these are much smaller and will stay in the net unlike the much larger females, nevertheless we (Brandon) trapped a female today! The rest of the morning was also pretty good with definitively more birds around then yesterday. Furthermore we had our first real thrushes morning with 18 Swainson's Thrushes banded. Among the thrushes we had 2 Gray-cheeked's as well. Yesterday we failed to keep up the daily total over a hundred new birds but today we were able to do so again, fortunately :)

Results:

Sharp-shinned Hawk 1 -
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 5 -
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher 2 -
Acadian Flycatcher 1 -
Eastern Phoebe 1 -
Red-eyed Vireo 7 -
Blue Jay 1 -
House Wren 1 -
Marsh Wren 1 -
Veery 1 -
Gray-cheeked Thrush 2 -
Swainson's Thrush 18 -
Wood Thrush 5 -
Gray Catbird 3 -
Brown Thrasher 1 -
Tennessee Warbler 2 -
Nashville Warbler 3 -
Chestnut-sided Warbler 1 -
Magnolia Warbler 13 -
Cape May Warbler 3 -
Black-throated Blue Warbler 1 -
Black-throated Green Warbler 2 -
Bay-breasted Warbler 3 -
Black-and-White Warbler  1 -
American Redstart 1 -
Ovenbird 3 -
Northern Waterthrush 1 -
Connecticut Warbler 3 -
Mourning Warbler 1 -
Common Yellowthroat 8 -
Hooded Warbler 3 -
Scarlet Tanager 5 -
Eastern Towhee 1 -
Rose-breasted Grosbeak 4 -

Total 109, 34 species, 143 including recaps

Drew with the SSH!

Sharp-shinned Hawk, hatching year female

I was really happy with the hawk :D

Bay-breasted Warbler, after hatching-year male; this male has still got some remaining reddish crownfeathers.

Marsh Wren, hatching year; a lifer for me and also a good bird for Powdermill (1-4 banded every year)

This is what you will get when you're trying to band a Rose-breasted Grosbeak.. haha.

In the afternoon Drew held a short powerpoint presentation again for the workshoppers about the evolution of feathers, which was quite interesting. We have set up a few new nets along 'the road', which are good at catching all kinds of birdspecies at the moment. One net needed some tightening so that was done after the presentation. In addition me and Drew cleared the ground around our one and only big mesh net (61 mm measured diagonnally, other than the Europeans!), in the hope of catching the Belted Kingfisher someday, or even a Sandpiper.