Spring 2019 Banding Season, Week 7: May 27—May 31

On Thursday and Friday, the woods were filled with a dizzying array of “whit” and “pit” calls—the sounds of flycatchers! We had an incredible movement of flycatchers from the Empidonax genus (called Empids for short). This week alone we processed 113 Empids, including Least, Yellow-bellied, Alder, Willow, and Acadian Flycatchers. On Friday, our busiest day, we processed 147 new birds, 64 of which were Empids.

The Empidonax genus is notoriously hard for birders to differentiate by appearance alone. However, the differences in vocalizations help separate the species in most cases. When we have an Empid in the hand, we can rely on using calipers to measure characteristics such as bill width and the distance between feathers to pin down the species, along with slight plumage differences and leg color. Even after we take several measurements, sometimes we can’t separate them to species. This can be the case with Willow and Alder Flycatchers, two distinct but closely related species.

In addition to the Empids, we also banded Eastern Wood-Pewees and Great Crested Flycatchers. Combine these with the Eastern Phoebes, Eastern Kingbirds, and rare Olive-sided Flycatcher seen this week, and we documented 10 flycatcher species!

Another species that was in abundance Friday was Swainson’s Thrush. On Friday alone we banded 28, bringing our season total up to 56, putting us at the most Swainson’s Thrushes banded in the last 10 years. We also banded 2 Gray-cheeked Thrushes, a rare spring migrant in the Northeast.

Cheers,
Megan, Sarah, Evan, and Jeremy

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