Opening of the SWAT Station
First bird caught at the SWAT station – Gray Catbird!
Today (Wednesday) was the very first day of banding at the SWAT – MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship) banding station. I had to reschedule it after a storm had moved through on Monday morning and I felt bad about rescheduling since a few birding friends were willing to help me out with the banding (since I didn’t know how many birds that I would catch). So I ended up banding alone today. Temperatures ranged from 41F to 58F and we did have a very brief shower around 9am. It had been foggy all morning and the sun didn’t peak out until 10:30am.
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Five Baby Chickadees!
The Black-capped Chickadee is a common and widespread resident who visits our bird feeders. Then you find yourself very excited since one of these cute chickadees is using a nest boxes of yours. Young naturalist C had this happened and was so excited to tell me about her new resident. BTW: This is the chickadee nest that I posted as Cute Wordless Wednesday and thought she did such a wonderful job documenting their birth that she deserved another posting!
Mon@rch's Nature Blog 