Notes from the Station

 Species: Common Yellowthroat
Most recent capture date: 4/02/2022
Earliest capture date: 4/09/2021
Age: more than one year old
Sex: female

​Notes: Common Yellowthroats like to live in marsh habitats like the one you can see behind this bird.

Species: Song Sparrow
Most recent capture date: 4/02/2022
Age: at least ten months
Sex: male

​Notes: This bird had a severe, but old and healed, wound at the back of his head. It looked like a large patch of skin had been removed all the way down to the skull, and although it had all healed over, there was still a sort of pothole in his head and no feathers growing there. Despite that, he was feisty and energetic, behaviorally no different from any other Song Sparrow. We were very impressed that he survived such an injury!

Species: Wilson’s Warbler
Most recent capture date: 4/02/2022
Earliest capture date: 4/09/2021
Age: More than one year old
Sex: male

Species: Orange-crowned Warbler
Most recent capture date: 4/02/2022
Age: at least 10 months old
Sex: male

​Notes: Orange-crowned Warblers do have orange crowns, but they’re usually covered up by the other head feathers. You can see just the hint of orange on this bird’s head.

Species: White-breasted Nuthatch
Most recent capture date: 2/26/2022
Age: about ten months old
Sex: female

​Notes: Nuthatches scrunch their necks into their shoulders until you feel like you are holding the world’s fuzziest, pointiest turtle.

Species: American Robin
Most recent capture date: 2/26/2022
Age: about ten months old
Sex: female

​Notes: Another bird from our Day of Robins. Compare this young female to the previously posted bird, an older male: notice her more muted coloring. The colors on American Robins depend on both their sex and age.

Species: American Robin
Most recent capture date: 2/26/2022
Age: more than one year old
Sex: male

​Notes: In the winter, robins like to hang out in large flocks. We rarely catch robins at the banding station, but on this particular date, a flock stopped by to gorge on berries and we managed to catch 17 of them!

Species: Golden-crowned Sparrow
Most recent capture date: 1/30/2022
Earliest capture date: 10/15/2017
Age: four years 6 months

Species: Allen’s Hummingbird or Rufous Hummingbird
Most recent capture date: 1/22/2022
​Weight: 3.6 grams

​Notes: Hummingbirds in the genus Selasphorus can be difficult to distinguish. For this bird, we used measurements and color patterns to try to identify it, to no avail – too many of its traits could have belonged to either of the possible species. Whichever species it is, it is not expected to be in our area this time of year, which is neat!

Species:
Most recent capture date: 1/23/2022
Earliest capture date: 7/8/2017
Age: four years 6 months

Notes: This bird was captured as a juvenile in 2017, then not captured again until January 2022! What were they doing in the intervening years?