After a day of rain over here at the Crown Point Banding Station the weather has been perfect for us…and pretty good for the birds also. So far we have banded nearly 150 birds, mostly yellow rumped warblers. But 31 other species are also wearing bands—and we’ve only been here three days.
Just an hour ago (May 12 at 8 p.m.) we caught a western palm warbler, a bird we don’t get every year. It was a nice male.
We saw a beautiful eastern palm warbler this morning feeding through the bushes near the banding station but we didn’t catch that one.
We don’t catch every bird we see as they come up the point going out toward Lake Champlain, but we do catch a lot of them.
The second day here we had a female orchard oriole feeding in the bushes near our tent.
Later that day a beautiful brick red male of the same species showed up.
Tom Barber, who helps with net duties, brought me that nice male as the last bird of the day.
Just before that we caught a phoebe and a ruby crowned kinglet which were new birds not only for the day, but the year as well.
Besides getting a band on the birds we catch, we also try to determine their age and sex. Some have a long way to go before they reach their summer territory, and their sex can’t be determined especially when both sexes look alike.
Age can normally be determined by their feathers, whether it’s a wing, tail or some other feathers that may help in distinguishing its age.
I had a neat experience happen the first night here. I woke up at 3:30 a.m. and heard the toot, toot and toot call of a saw whet owl from the back of the tent.
I got right out of the sleeping bag and got my iPod and speakers out. It took me a while to get them to work simultaneously but I finally did it.
I put up three nets in the dark—it was almost daylight by then—and started the owl tape.
The owl was responding and in less than 15 minutes I had the bird in the net.
I couldn’t tell which side of the net the bird was in as I was only working with a head lamp and I guessed wrong.
I had my hand on the bird but it was on the other side of the net, and as soon as I let go and tried to go around it flew up and out of the net.
It landed in a nearby tree and looked down at me as if to say, “You haven’t got me.”
We had only ever caught two other saw whet owls at the station before and both were caught during daylight hours. I’m still trying to go after him. He called all last night but wouldn’t come to the tape. Fool me once, but you won’t fool me twice.
A couple of days before going to Crown Point Al Birchenaugh, and I fished Limekiln Lake for few hours and caught a nice mess of splake.
I caught most of the fish, which normally isn’t the case when I fish with Al.
Just before I left home on Friday I had a rose breasted grosbeak at the feeder. Usually that’s the day the hummers arrive. Karen told me she saw it the next day.
Marcia Roblee of Raquette Lake had one on Friday, so get those feeders out. One showed up here on Saturday and it has been coming ever since.
That same morning before I left I walked down to the pond and saw little yellow violets blooming along the path. In the back yard my bloodroot had just came out also.
I would say that flowers and birds are about two weeks later than normal. With these nice warmer temperatures the season may pick up fast and everything will come out at once.
The wood frogs had laid eggs out back and we only heard a few peepers. Normally their calls from the pond are deafening.
The trees had only just barely started to leaf out here when we arrived and now they are greening up very quickly.
A couple warm showers and you will be able to watch them grow.
The birds here make this a stopping place because there is a little green worm that lives in the hawthorn leaves.
All the birds have been checking out these leaves but there doesn’t seem to be any little worms yet.
More from Crown Point Banding Station, but that’s another story. See ya.