Fall 2019 Banding Season, Week 3: August 26-30

After being inundated with more than a hundred hatch-year Gray Catbirds last week, the pace this week was more leisurely. We banded 82 new birds and processed an additional 108 repeats. This brings our total new birds banded up to 282 and repeats processed to 205. During the week, we had little to no movement of migrants and processed many of the same Gray Catbirds we banded the previous week. In general, we had low species diversity Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday in the banding lab; however, Tuesday and Friday winds came slightly from the north and blew several new species our way including a Mourning Warbler and a Canada Warbler. Other new species for our week included White-breasted Nuthatch and Yellow-shafted Flicker, bringing our species total up to 25.

The remnants of Hurricane Erin passed over late in the afternoon Wednesday into early Thursday morning bringing heavy rain and a few thunderstorms. Friday was calm in the morning with a south wind increasing in the afternoon. Several warbler species were around Manomet on Friday, including American Redstarts, Common Yellowthroats, and Black-and-white, Pine, Canada, and Mourning Warblers. Also seen and heard intermittently this week was a Common Raven—at one point on Thursday we heard a ruckus caused by about 15 of the local crows harassing the raven around the bluff.