Fall 2020 Banding Season, Week 3: August 31—September 4

Tuesday we had a strong south wind overnight but caught three new species of birds for the week: Common Grackle, Hairy Woodpecker, and a hatch-year male Ruby-throated Hummingbird! The Ruby-throated Hummingbird had a few red gorget (throat) feathers coming in. After processing, Cynthia placed it on her hand to be released. Instead of immediately taking off, it paused for a quick moment before zipping away to perch in the nearby Norway Maple.

During our last net run, we recaptured two after-hatch-year Gray Catbirds. One of their bands’ nine-digit numbers looked to be from an older series of bands, possibly predating those being used in the lab this season. Interest piqued, while Cynthia finished processing the bird, Sarah reviewed data from previous years to look up the band. Excitingly, we were able to find the bird in the database, first banded as a hatch-year in the fall of 2013, recaught several times in 2013, 2014, and 2019, making this catbird 8 years old! We marveled at how many times she (this bird was caught with a developed brood patch one spring, indicating incubation of eggs, so we know it’s a female) had successfully completed her fall and spring migrations, returning to breed at Manomet each time. As banders, we love these details that tell a bird’s life story. Without banding, we might never know this kind of information!

Wednesday was calm to begin and we witnessed a bright red sunrise off the bluff. The old sailor’s proverb “red sky in the morning, sailors take warning” came true just a few hours later. South winds began whipping up in the morning and clouds thickened. Around 11 AM, we decided to close as rain showers threatened on the horizon. Soon after, the rain came down quickly and white caps began forming on the ocean, showing waves were breaking far out. Thursday was humid and had us dodging showers all day; consequently, we processed only 11 birds but saw a few amphibians including a young Wood Frog and a large American Toad on the path to Cranberry Hill.

Friday was humid and hot and we heard Gray Tree Frogs and Spring Peepers calling throughout the day. We expected very little in the way of birds since we had mostly south winds overnight and heavy rain early in the morning. But we caught three first-of-seasons! All three had some yellow on them, so we started joking that we needed to bring back a yellow first-of-season each net run. Our first was a hatch-year female Scarlet Tanager, not often caught at Manomet , since they migrate further inland and also tend to stay higher up in the trees, above where we keep the nets. After the tanager, we caught a Wilson’s Warbler and a male Prairie Warbler!

We closed the nets a few hours later as it got too hot to band. While sitting on the bluff after closing, we saw large numbers of Laughing Gulls putthing on a show. Hundreds of gulls were wheeling overhead—they appeared to be flycatching like swallows and swifts! After some research, it seems that Laughing Gulls, Ring-billed Gulls, and terns will feed on large swarms of flying ants that hatch at this time of year. It was definitely entertaining to see these larger birds twisting their bodies and snapping their bills mid-air to catch small flying insects, maneuvers we usually associate with smaller, daintier flycatchers and aerial insectivores.

Until next week,

Megan, Sarah, Cynthia, and Jeremiah

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