By: Emily Renaud, Communications Coordinator
 

Director of Landbird Conservation Trevor Lloyd-Evans sets a net!

After a brief summer respite, our banding lab sprung back into action on Tuesday, August 15.  Over the course of three long, sweat-soaked days along the coast of Cape Cod Bay, the team of four banders—plus Landbird Conservation Director Trevor Lloyd-Evans—weed-whacked and sheared every inch of our property’s winding trails to make way for all 50 mist nets. The mist nets will run Monday through Friday, from dawn to dusk, until November 15.

 

Our 2017 spring season yielded some impressive results (view the spring banding summary here), with astoundingly high capture rates following an unusually cold and damp April. Beginning our 52nd fall of banding, Trevor reflects on what species we can expect to see at this time of year.

 

“Beginning is the word, we’re getting a lot of juvenile plumages and things like that,” he said. “I was on Plum Island last week…there were thousands and thousands of Tree Swallows all moving south.” When asked what the fall banding season will bring: “I refuse to answer that question, there are many possibilities…But we’ve had a really good vegetation year. We had gypsy moth damage the last two springs, but so far we’ve escaped this year so that means all the trees have got lots of leaves. And, we’ve actually had tremendous fruit production this year; lots of black cherries, beach plums, and morrow honeysuckle.”

 

This food availability may increase chances of passing migrants stopping over to refuel for a while—though, as implied, it’s nearly impossible to predict what will happen.

 

The lab processed their first Eastern Screech-owl since 2015 the morning of August 21, 2017. Courtesy of Emily Renaud

This season, we excitedly welcome back four banding lab veterans: Sarah Duff and Elsa Chen return as our extraordinary interns, each with a full spring season of experience, joined by leads Alex Bartolo and Kayla Baker. Alex comes to us for his third Manomet season straight from Panama, where he worked with former Manomet bander Dan Albrecht-Mallinger banding Neotropical species and conducting varied ecological research projects since early this year. Kayla, who was with us in the fall of 2015, just wrapped up a ten-month stint as Seasonal Ornithologist and Educator for California Audubon where she trained interns and volunteers, taught aspiring biologists of all ages, and partook in numerous ornithological research endeavors. We’re very lucky to have such an outstanding team, and can’t wait to show you the amazing birds passing through Manomet’s property this fall!

 

For your chance to dive into the action of fall bird migration, contact our office to schedule a visit to the lab, Monday through Friday. More importantly, we encourage you to participate in our 37th annual Bird-a-Thon September 16-17, the proceeds of which directly benefit the banding lab and other projects within our Landbird Conservation Program. Click here for more information and to sign up today!