• Powdermill's first ever Black-headed Grosbeak (BHGR), banded on Friday, September 24th, was one of 720 birds banded this week and one of 61 species.  Six new species were banded this week including the BHGR and the first Yellow-bellied Sapsucker for the year.  Swainson's Thrush migration continued strong with 111 banded taking our top spot this week.  Magnolia Warbler (55) came in second, American Goldfinch (52) was third, Gray Catbird (41) was fourth, and Black-throated Green-Warbler (30) took fifth place.

• While not banded at Powdermill and therefore not included in our totals or species count, a bird banded on Monday, September 20th nonetheless qualified as a banding highlight for us.  We received a phone call over the weekend from Mrs. Evelyn Welshons, who lives less than ten miles northeast of Powdermill, telling us she had one or two Rufous Hummingbirds coming to her feeder.  Interestingly, Mrs. Welshons also reported a probable Rufous Hummingbird visiting her feeder two falls ago, but despite our best efforts to mist net it in order to confirm its identification, the bird eluded capture.  This time, we headed off (on our one day off from Powdermill banding) much better prepared with a collapsible Sargent drop trap (photo below).  The trap was provided to us by Bob Sargent himself, in return for our willingness to help him with his studies of wintering hummingbirds in the eastern U.S. by trying to capture any non-Ruby-throated hummingbirds reported in fall or winter in our area of western Pennsylvania.

• It was a very short wait (about five minutes) from the time we set the Sargent trap to our having the target hummingbird in hand, which proved to be the fourth Rufous Hummingbird that we have banded in the last ten years or so within 20 miles of Powdermill.  It was a hatching year female in the latter stages of a complete wing and tail molt.  It had a wing length of 43.5mm, a small fat deposit and weighed 3.5 grams.

From left to right:  Trish Miller, Adrienne Leppold, Mike Lanzone, waiting for the hummingbird to enter the trap

Once in the hand, the bird could be quickly identified and sexed by the pattern, size and shape of its rectrices

Surprising to us, this hummingbird already was well along with its complete wing and tail molt (all rectrices molted and only the outer three primaries as yet unmolted), something that we thought did not occur until this species reached its wintering grounds.  Then again, as far as this bird is concerned, maybe southwestern Pennsylvania is its wintering grounds!

• Between the Rufous Hummingbird and the Black-headed Grosbeak, we were beginning to wonder if Hurricane Ivan hadn't relocated Powdermill somewhere farther out west, but we decided we probably were still somewhere east of Colorado when our first capture of the day on Tuesday, September 21, was our second Pileated Woodpecker for this year--a hatching year male (the redhead on the right!) banded by Adrienne Leppold (the redhead on the left).  In the photo below, banding volunteer, Felicity Newell, who  extracted the PIWO from the net, gets to let it go after banding.

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• Our first Ruby-crowned Kinglets were observed on Monday afternoon, after we returned from hummingbird banding, and we banded our first for the fall on Tuesday morning.  As mentioned this spring, we experience a differential migration of kinglets through Powdermill,  males coming through about two weeks earlier than females in the spring.  The reverse is true in the fall, with females appearing at Powdermill a week or more ahead of the first males.

• In the fall, sex of TEWA's is primarily based on wing length.  This adult male banded on Wednesday, September 22, however, was no challenge to age or sex.  With its beautiful blue/gray crown, bright white supercilium, bright olive back plumage, and whitish underparts, it couldn't be anything but an adult male!  Note, not all adult male TEWAs are this showy in their basic plumage.

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• Similarly, adult male Connecticut Warblers, with their full gray hoods and bright white eye rings, can't be mistaken for any other age/sex class.

• Adult male Bay-breasted Warblers, however, can be a little more equivocal.   Both immature and adult males and adult females can show a variable amount of reddish brown color on their sides in the fall (immature females always lack any extensive brown color on their sides).  Below are photos of an adult male (top), immature male (middle), and immature female (bottom) banded this week.

• A day full of photo ops netted us this Gray Catbird pictured below, ok, maybe you'll have to take our word for it that it's a catbird.  A not so uncommon phenomenon, the same two nails on both feet grew in unpigmented.

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• On Thursday, September 23, we banded our first Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.  This hatching year bird of unknown sex (because it had not yet replaced its juvenal throat feathers, we could not tell whether it was a male, which acquires a red throat patch, or female, whose throat would be white after the prebasic molt is completed).

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• On Sunday, September 26, we banded our first Sharp-shinned Hawk of the season and only our second for the year, a large HY female.

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• We end with a photo of yet another Hooded Warbler banded this fall (bringing our fall 2004 total to a record smashing 232!--previous fall high total was 189), which also provided our second example of a hungry migrant with quick reflexes.  Last week, we reported and showed a picture of a Cape May Warbler that Mike Lanzone caught in the act of snacking on a hoverfly while he held if for pictures down at Allegheny Front Migration Observatory.

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On Sunday, we snatched a hoverfly that was buzzing around the banding lab and jokingly offered it up to a Hooded Warbler we were processing.  To our surprise, when we loosed our grip on the fly under the bird's beak, the HOWA snatched it up before the fly had gained even an inch of altitude!  Unlike the Cape May Warbler, however, the Hooded Warbler was too distracted by all the picture taking and ended up dropping its morsel rather than eating it!

 

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Last Updated on 09/26/04
By Adrienne J. Leppold and
Robert S. Mulvihill