A Woodcock, finally!

While opening the Backfield Nets this morning we saw about four Woodcocks, making sounds with their wings, flying around and landing just next to the nets... I said: If we don't catch a Woodcock right now, we will never get one! Well, after opening all the Backfield nets, guess what was hanging in the net we opened first: a Woodcock! Finally, after Brandon already had one bouncing against the net and I had found feathers in the net the last weeks, we caught one!

They're really pretty (even prettier than their European relatives, sorry!)

Headshot

Overall shot

My expression while Mary is banding the Woodcock. Mary wanted to band the Woodcock so badly, that I let her band it. Bye Bye banding tick, haha!

Furthermore, the banding was really good again despite the awful weather conditions we're dealing with. We managed to band a 122 Yellow-rumped Warblers again. If we keep going on like this we might make it to the magical 1000 Yellow-rumped Warblers! 

The totals:

American Woodcock 1 -

Brown Creeper 1 -

Winter Wren 2 -

Golden-crowned Kinglet 2 -

Ruby-crowned Kinglet 19 -

Gray-cheeked Thrush 1 -

Swainson's Thrush 1 -

Hermit Thrush 5 -

Gray Catbird 1 -

Tennessee Warbler 1 -

Yellow-rumped Warbler 122 -

Eastern Towhee 1 -

Field Sparrow 2 -

Song Sparrow 14 -

Swamp Sparrow 9 -

White-throated Sparrow 7 -

Dark-eyed Junco 5 -

Northern Cardinal 1 -

Purple Finch 1 - (plus one recapture of an adult female of at least two years old!)

Total 196 (240 incl recaps), 19 species

This tiny Kinglet got fairly agitated by us as you can see!

Purple Finch, hatching year male

Two photos by Tammo:

Belted Kingfisher, male

House Finch, adult male (banded)

After the banding we decided to head to Greensburg with the entire Powdermill banding crew to eat something. We had the typical Western Pennsylvanian fastfood: a Pitts-burger at the Primanti Bros.

A sub with 1. Tomatoes 2. Koolsla 3. Fries 4. Hamburger. 5. Cheese.. An entire meal in one sandwich. It tasted pretty good actually!

At the Primanti Bros.

After the lunch we did some shopping in one of the shopping malls in Greensburg. Afterwards we went to the cinema. We went to The Big Year, what else! We really enjoyed this movie. I had read the novel some years ago (can't remember all the details anymore though for comparison). Movies about birdwatching are really rare so it was good to go to one!