Yesterday was my second day of banding at the Arboretum at Penn State. I was not expecting to do to well, assuming that there was snow on my Jeep before I left my apartment at 6:30 am, my thermometer read 25 degrese, and there were constant hand numbing wind gusts. Our first round of net checks at about 7:25 surprised us with several birds, including 2 fox sparrows!
Fox Sparrows
Throughout the day we caught more birds than I expected, including dark-eyed juncos, white-throated sparrows, american robins, and a northern "yellow-shafted" flicker. This was a first for our bander in charge, who has banded thousands of birds.
Josh taking a wing measurement of the Northern Flicker
Northern "yellow-shafted" flicker
Ten points to the person that guesses why this is a "yellow-shafted" flicker...
The day ended early due to high wind and cold tempereatures, after all our main concern while doing any kind of field work is the well fare of the animal and environment. So we closed the nets at 9:30, making our last birds of the day 2 american robins.
I wasn't wuite ready to go home, so I checked out the Centre Furnace Duck ponds for anything exciting. There wasn't much other than mallards, ring-necked ducks, canada geese, and american coots, though I did pick up golden-crowned kinglet, and snapped a few pictures of northern mockingbirds picking at berries and an american goldfinch.
Northern Mockingbird
Northern Mockingbird
Northern Mockingbird
American Goldfinch
This pair of canada geese were upstream of the pond at what seemed to be a potential nesting site. It is amazing how camoflauge these birds can be when they have their heads down, trying to remain undetected.
Canada goose in stealth mode
Canada goose
I will be back at it first thing tomorrow morning setting mist nets, Saturday morning as well. Hopefully we can get some good birds banded!! Take care and check back!!
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