Atlantic Flyway Review: Northeast Coastal Region I- 1997

Tracey Dean- Regional Coordinator Huntsman Marine Science Centre BrandyCove, St. Andrews New Brunswick, Canada E0G 2X0

This year I am happy to report a slightincrease in Lapham died last spring after a courageousfight the number of stationsreporting from the North- againstcancer. Helen was a part of the banding east Coastal Region.Welcome to the Vermont In- on Block Island since it began in 1967 and added stitute for Natural Science (VINS) and Overpeck greatlyto the pleasureof visitorswith her knowl- Park.We hope you willstay with us for a numberof edge, enthusiasm,freshness, and wondermentof years.VINS adds an inlandcomponent to the Re- the birds and their characteristics whenever she view, and Overpeck Park seems an interesting gave a demonstration.Her goingis a lossfor all of open countryhabitat that is changingquickly. The us."Elise Lapham & Kim Gaffett Grand Manan Bird Observatory appears to have finally settled on a permanent site and Peter Homann was back at his SW-Laurentian Mountain Stationin Quebec.Peter managed to band for only eight days catching34 birds of 15 differentspecies and we look forwardto a detailed report in 1998.

"Gently average,"as David Holmes puts it, sums up the 1997 season very well for most sites. There were no complaintsabout the lack of birds or too many birds and nothing really remarkable in the way of species present or absent. The Canadian Maritimesexperienced one of the driest summer/ fall seasonson record,yet farther downthe coast, Appledore Island rarely saw the sun. St. Andrew's totals show a good early warbler migrationbut a lackof late migrantsparrows and kingletsstopping in the area. Results from the Canadian offshore islandsindicate the opposite,with the highestnum- bers in late October.VINS was happyto see that species numbers reboundedto more normal levels in 1997, whileAppledore Island showed no sig- nificanthighs or lows.Block Island noted a lack of thrushes and creepers but White-throat numbers were up. Island Beach banded more birds than 1996 but fewer of their "bread-&-butter"migrants. Tables1 & 2 presentthe summaryresults for each site.

"We're sorry to say that Elise's daughter Helen

Page50 NorthAmerican Bird Bander Vol.23 No.2 Apr.- Jun.1998 NorthAmerican Bird Bander Page 51 Table 2. Region I Top Ten Species. Fall 1997.

Grand Vermont Institute Bon Portage Is. St. Andrews NB Manan NB VT NS Seal Island NS

1 101 MAWA (5) 289 CORE 251 WTSP (1) 244 MYWA (2) 45 WTSP

2 76 NAWA (10) 231 SOSP 150 AMRO (2) 199 AMGO 45 NOWA (5)

3 61 MYWA (1) 171 BTNW 93 SOSP (4) 135 SOSP 40 MYWA (4)

4 59 AMRE 163 AMRE 91 SCJU 102 BLPW (3) 36 SOSP

5 54 WTSP (2) 162 COYE @1 BCCH (7) 96 COYE (5) 34 AMGO

6 50 BTNW 147 MYWA 76 HETH (6) @9 WTSP 31 SWSP

7 46 COYE (2) 136 WTSP 69 GRCA (3) @7 GCKI (10) 29 GCKI (10)

8 45 BCCH (6) 132 BCCH 6@ MYWA 73 SCJU 27 SCJU

9 36 BAWW 111 SWSP 63 COYE (5) 69 FOSP (@) 21 BLPW (3)

10 34 AMGO 108 "DEJU" 55 AMGO 55 SWSP 18 RBNU

18 SSHA

Table 2 (cont'd.) Region I Top Ten Species. Fall 1997.

Island Beach SP Appledore Is ME Block Island RI Overpeck Park NJ NJ 1 206 NOWA (3) 437 MYWA (1) 341 MYWA 434 GCKI (2)

2 188 REVI (1) 261 GRCA (2) 214 COYE 308 VVTSP (4)

3 184 RBNU 115 COYE (5) 204 SOSP 291 MYWA (1)

4 151 COYE (2) 65 REVI (3) 173 GRCA 268 BRCR (9)

5 142 AMRE (4) 60 GCKI (6) 117 WPWA 210 SCJU (6)

6 92 YWAR (5) 55 VVTSP (7) 78 SWSP 210 GRCA (3)

7 78 GRCA (6) 52 "DEJU" (10) 77 AMGO 168 COYE (5)

8 48 BAWW (7) 45 AMRE 71 YWAR 161 RCKI

9 45 SOSP (10) 39 RCKI (8) 56 SAVS 102 SWSP

10 41 MAWA 32 SWSP 45 LISP 97 SOSP (7)

41 WIWA

Page52 NorthAmerican Bird Bande/' Vol.23 No.2 St. Andrews Banding Station 450-0670 sive part of banding,and I would like to thank the New Brunswick, Canada James L. Baillie Memorial Fund for their continued Tracey Dean (bander) financialsupport. New nets are always as asset. Assistant- Carolyn Murphy Long Pond Migration Station 443-0664 The St. Andrews Banding Station is considering Grand Manan Bird Observatory becomingpart of the MigrationMonitoring Network New Brunswick, Canada that is being set up across Canada but does not Brian Dalzell & Calvin Brennan (banders) meet the qualificationstandard of daily coverage. Assistants:Wendy Jess, Kenneth Macintosh,Jim This year the nets were open more often, which Tietz, Dan Burton, Liba Pejchar. resulted in more birds being caught but another experienced bander is needed before the station After three seasons of searching, it appears.the can progress. Observatory has finally found a suitable site on which to establisha long-term migrationmonitor- The fall weather was ideal for bandingwith little ing station. Pilot stations were operated at Kent wind or rain and the southwardmigration of war- Island in the fall of 1995 and Southwest Head in blersfrom the beginningof Augustuntil the middle the fall of 1996. In the fall of 1997, monitoringtook of Septemberwas steady.There were recordnum- place at the Grand Manan MigratoryBird Sanctu- bers of most speciesbanded, notably Black-and- ary, adjacent to Long Pond. The area is commonly white, Nashville, Magnolia, and Black-throated referredto as Anchorage ProvincialPark, and lies Green warblers, Ovenbird, Northern Waterthrush between Seal Cove and Grand Harbour on the main and AmericanRedstart. The latermigration of spar- island of Grand Manan. rows, kinglets and thrushes was weak with "lows" recorded in many species. Song, Lincoln'sand The overridingtheme of late summer and fall was Swamp sparrow numbers were down as well as drought, perhaps the most severe experienced in thosefor Ruby-crownedKinglet. Only a singleHer- the region in more than 100 years. By the time mit Thrush was recorded. more or less normal precipitationresumed in No- vember, nearby Long Pond had dropped almost Uncommonspecies captured includedthe station's three feet. Despite the drought, and perhaps be- second Orange-crowned Warbler, Yellow-bellied cause of it, songbirds in the Maritime provinces Sapsucker and Pine Grosbeak; and the station's appeared to have a very good breeding season. third Yellow-breasted Chat and Sharp-shinned Warblerswere in good supplyuntil a mass exodus Hawk. The hawk was grabbed by hand from a on 18 August which resulted in 98 birds banded, dense patch of bushes as it sat on a screaming our second-best day of the season. BlueJay. (We capturedthe unhurtBlue Jay as well!) All speciesof flycatchersexcept "Traill's" appeared Publiceducation and bandingdemonstrations are to be in lower-than-normalnumbers, but mostspar- stilla priority;and this year ten groups,including rows and finches were not hard to find. Some of high schools students from Ontario, New the more northern breeders were in short supply, Brunswick, and Quebec, as well as naturalist clubs such as Dark-eyed Junco, Ruby-crownedKinglet, and teachers, participatedin programs. Pine Siskin, White-crowned Sparrow, Blackpoll Warbler, Wilson'sWarbler, Myrtle Warbler, North- Fieldwork is alwaysthe enjoyablepart of banding, ern Waterthrush, Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, and but data needs to be written up and resultspre- Palm Warbler. Part of the reason may have been sented. In October,a paper, "MonitoringBird Mi- an unusuallycool and wet June and July in parts gration:building a database,"which centred around of Newfoundland, Labrador, and northern Quebec. data collectedat the St. AndrewsBanding Station, was given at the Quoddy EMAN (Environmental There appeared to be two distinctmovements of Monitoringand AssessmentNetwork) Conference White-wingedCrossbills between mid-Augustand held in St. Andrews.Field work is alsothe expen- early November.One from east to west, resulted in as many as 150 birdsper morningmigrating past Apr. - Jun. 1998 NorthAmerican Bird Bander Page 53 in Augustand September. A secondfrom northto Bird Observatory on Bon Portage Island, Nova southin Octoberbrought lesser numbers. The first Scotia, some 75 miles to the south. wave showed no inclinationto linger, unlike the second.The Octoberbirds resulted in 11 bandings, Vermont Inst. of Natural Science 433-0723 all juveniles,and all were very lean. Many were Woodstock, VT reportedat local bird feeders, a rare behaviourfor Jim Tietz, Steve Faccio, Tim Redman, Kent these northernfinches. A totalfailure of the spruce McFarland, Jim Goetz, Mia Sondreal, and Chris conecrop in the GrandManan Archipelago may or Rimmer-VlNS staff banders may not havebeen relatedto the drought. Fritz Gerhart, Angele Brill, Carol Cushing,Kevin By far the highlightof the bandingseason was a Ahern, Chris Sheldon, Betty Gilbert, and Libby strongmovement of CommonRedpolls through the Hillhouse - Volunteer banders. Archipelagobetween mid-October and mid-Novem- ber. The first birdscaptured on 13 Octobercame Our bandingstation is locatedon the BragdonNa- as a total surprise. Our largestdaily catch of the ture Preserve at the headquarters of the Vermont season took place on 30 October with 154 birds Institute of Natural Science (VINS),a non-profit, banded,150 of whichwere redpolls,with mostbe- membership-based,research and educationalor- ing caughtin justtwo nets. The nextday resulted ganization.Our net lanes are locatedin early suc- in 110 redpollsbanded. As manyas 300 birdsper cessional/secondgrowth habitat, primarilyaround day were estimatedin the studyarea duringthe a small (approx.2 acre) pond.The vegetationcon- lastweek of October.Fully 90 per cent of the Com- sists of a variety of shrubsand saplingsincluding mon Redpollsbanded were hatch-yearbirds, with autumn olive, blackberry, buckthorn, willows, about five per cent adultsand the rest of unknown maples, and dogwoods,with a brokenoverstory of age. sugar maple, aspen, blackcherry, and white ash. The 1997 banding season representedour 17th Bitinginsects almost completely disappeared af- consecutiveyear of data collection. ter earlyAugust, indicating other insectpopulations may have been very low in late summer. Indeed, Duringthe fall season (1 August- 11 November) fat levelson almostall capturedmigrants were un- we banded on 70 morningsfor a total of 7,074.5 usuallylow. Bandingmortalities were also higher net hours.With a similaramount of effort,we cap- than normal, with many apparentlyhealthy birds tured 211 more birds in October 1997 (662), than simplyexpiring in the handduring processing. Fa- in October1996 (451).Whilefall numbersfor Ameri- tal shockfrom heat stroke/dehydrationare hypoth- can Robin, Hermit Thrush, Red-eyed Vireo, and esized as possiblecauses. Ovenbirdwere relatively"normal,"it was a pooryear for Eastern Phoebe, Veery, and Baltimore Oriole. Banding highlightsincluded single Yellow-billed As a group, sparrows were well represented this Cuckoo (1 October), Marsh Wren (4 October), year, with junco, Song, Lincoln's,White-throated, BrownThrasher (19 October),Warbling Vireo (13 and AmericanTree sparrows making up 35% of September),two adult White-eyedVireo (1 & 2 our total fall captures.The fall migrationof warblers October),three Orange-crowned Warbler ( 4, 13 & rebounded significantlyover last year's low turn- 16 October),a maleKentucky Warbler (28 August), out, with a 209% increase in the number of Myrtle four PrairieWarbler (24 August- 14 September), Warblersbanded (68).We alsocaptured good num- twoYellow-breasted Chat (6 & 16 October),a Blue bers of Magnolia, Black-throatedGreen, and Palm Grosbeak(22 September)and an IndigoBunting warblers.Other notable increases included Ruby- (28 September).A Swainson'sThrush banded 7 crownedKinglet, Solitary Vireo, House Finch, and Septemberwas foundto be sufferingfrom a rare, American Goldfinch.It is interesting(and encour- and likelyfatal, conditionknown as subcutaneous aging) to note that most of the species that were emphysema. Foreignrecaptures included a HY "down"last year, reboundedthis year to more"nor- SavannahSparrow from nearby Kent Island, and mal" levels. a NorthernWaterthrush captured 26 September, originallybanded on 13 Septemberby the Atlantic Page 54 North American Bird Bander Vol. 23 No. 2 A few highlightsof the fallseason included our first In comparisonwith the past two years, 1997 was capture of a Broad-wingedHawk in August;and lowerthan averagein terms of both bandingand one of our highesttotals ever for BeltedKingfisher, dailyestimated total of migrants.Banding during capturinga totalof eight(seven of whichwere HYs). Augustand Septemberwas quite slow with few We also had an exciting recapture of a Black- exceptions(especially on SI).The majorityof Black- capped Chickadeethat we originallybanded as an and-whiteand Blackpollwarblers migrated through HY in 1988, makingit nine years old! in September.On SI, more than twice as many Northern Waterthrush were banded than Myrtle In additionto the schoolgroups, summer camps, Warbler, which were the second highest species and Eiderhostelgroups that were presentedwith banded.The other speciesobserved in any num- bandingdemonstrations, many individualsvisited bers duringAugust and September(Yellow War- the stationinformally to learn from our research bler, Black-throatedGreen Warbler,Fox Sparrow) staff and enjoya close-uplook at residentand mi- were those whichbreed locallyon the islands. gratorysongbirds. Many thanks to these dedicated volunteers--theymake the banding station more Octoberwas, by far,the mostproductive banding efficient, more productive,and much more enjoy- month,with an influxof AmericanGoldfinch, Myrtle able. Warbler, kinglets (not as marked for the Ruby- crowned), juncos and several sparrow species Bon Portage Island 432-0654 (White-throated,Swamp and Song). Seal Island 432-0660 Atlantic Bird Observatory, There was a considerable decrease in number of Nova Scotia, Canada Swainson's Thrush, American Redstart, Yellow Rina Nichols, Mark Button, Trina Fitzergerald, Warbler,Yellow-bellied Flycatcher and Red-eyed Melanie Massaro (banders) Vireo from 1996 to 1997. In contrast, there was a dramatic increase in number of American Gold- Assistants: Mike O'Brien, Bernice Moores, Pam finches and White-winged Crossbills.Over 200 Mills, Mike Boudreau, Dennis Brannen, Jennifer American Goldfinches and seven White-winged Miner, Adrian McGinn, Kris Kalahan, Robert and Crossbills were banded. Andrew McDonald, Angela Thibodeau, David Nutter, David McKinnon, Patricia Bernier, Colleen On SI, an influxof Sharp-shinnedHawks and Mer- Martin, Jackie Lewis. lins occurred in mid- to late-September and coin- cidedwith extremelylow numbersof passerinesin The AtlanticBird Observatoryconsists of two is- the bandingarea. The raptorsappeared to be key- land sites, Seal and Bon Portage, located off the ingin on the netsand were evenobserved perched southwestcoast of Nova Scotia. Seal Island (SI) is above them. There were 18 Sharp-shinnedHawks situated about 16 km off the extreme southwest and five Merlin captured in the nets, presumably coast of Nova Scotia, while Bon Portage (BP) is whilechasing passerines. The netswere shut down situated 15 km east of Seal Island and approxi- on four consecutivedays untilpasserine numbers mately3 km fromthe mainland.1997 was the sec- increased and raptor numbers decreased. ond full year of migrationmonitoring for the Atlan- tic Bird Observatory. There were several rare and unusual birds banded. On BP: a Marsh Wren, a ConnecticutWarbler, three Dry conditionsin late summer and fall allowedfor PrairieWarbler, a WarblingVireo, a BrownThrasher, excellentnet coverage.Less than 10 days of rain an American Woodcock and a Gray-checked were recordedduring the fall for each site. A com- Thrush.On SI: a FieldSparrow, a BeltedKingfisher bination of above average temperatures (several and an IndigoBunting. We also set up shorebird residents on Seal Island commented that this was nets for several days in September on SI and the warmest fall they could remember) and south- caughttwo Least Sandpipers and one RuddyTurn- erly winds in the month of September may have stone. played a role in this seemingly"unusual" fall.

Apr.- Jun.1998 NorthAmerican Bird Bander Page 55 All in all, it was an active, productive monitoring even if it did include both a Cerulean and Protho- season. notarywarbler the day beforeour all-daystorm and a Yellow-throatedWarbler the day following.We had Shoals Lab Banding Station 425-0703 about half our usual numberof returns,no reported AppledoreIsland, Maine recoveries,and no foreignbirds. David Holmes, John Munier,Mary Wright (banders) As always,we gratefullyacknowledge the staff of Assistants:Andre Breton,Carol Cushing,Dorothy Shoals Marine Laboratory for their helpfulness, Fitch,Aimee Fox,Terry Goodhue, Anthony Hill, Cliff many kindnesses,and willingnessto workwith the Horrigan, Susan Isabel, Stephanie Parkinson, irregularitiesin our meal availability.We also have Becky & Mark Suomala. a fantasticcorps of peoplewho pay roomand board to work with us directly.

The Shoals Lab BandingStation was open for 40 Block Island Banding Station 411-0713 days from 15 August through 24 September. As Rhode Island last year, we again sufferedan early closurewhen Elise Lapham, Kim Gaffett (banders) the Island shut down on the earliest date I can remember.We ran our core of nine nets very consis- Another interesting fall of banding started on 23 tently and a 10th net on parts of at least seven Augustwith a smallflock of goldfinch,and contin- days. We lost only one complete day to a storm ued to 12 November which produced a Northern (21 August)and fairlyinsignificant amounts of time Saw-whet Owl. The total banded this fall was 1680 on six additionaldays. The frontswere nottimed to birdscompared with 1996's 1431.This year we had be wonderfullybeneficial, so the season ended up 75 species, up from the 66 species in 1996. A feeling gentlyaverage (see Table 1). The weather quick reviewof net hours and birds per 100 net peculiaritythis year was fog.We've neverseen so hours shows an increase in effort, perhaps con- much. Our weather sheets listed sunrisefor only tributingto this year's increasedtotals (see Table five days between 15 Augustand 18 September. 1). We couldn'tsee it. If it wasn'tfog, it was clouds;but the birds still seemed to find us. The fall of 1997 saw a Hermit Thrush and Brown Creeper being replacedin the "Top10" (Table2) The season'sspecialty was the superflightof Red- withAmerican Redstart and SwampSparrow. Even breasted Nuthatch.Their total was 50% above any thoughRed-eyed Vireo are amongthe top ten spe- previousseason's count and withoutthem, our sea- cies banded, their numbers have been decreasing son wouldhave been lowaverage. With them, our over the past years. Golden-crownedKinglet, "oldtime comparison period of 15 August- 21 Sep- White-throatedSparrow and GrayCatbird numbers tember" was our second highest. Daily totals were up comparedto 1996; noneof these reached showedno stunninghighs or lowsand our ONLY their 1995 numbers. day of over 100 birdswas 11 Septemberwith 103. That day also broughtus two publicgroups, our Other noteworthyobservations include: season's only Olive-sidedFlycatcher, a Connecti- cutWarbler, our season's second Belted Kingfisher -Veery and Swainson'sThrush numbers (onlythe thirdfor the station),and the station'sfirst stayedabout the same as 1996, but this year we everWestern Kingbird in hand.We were lettingthe had no Gray-cheekedThrush and only 19 Her- birdsgo only in the thickestof bushesbecause by mits! supper-time17 Merlinswere sittingin a singledead tree 300 yardsfrom our office door. -1996 produced no nuthatches,while in 1997 Red-breasted Nuthatches had a strong show- Evenan averageseason has memorablemoments. ing of 28, and we had three White-breasted The station's50,000th bird,an HY-F Ruby-crowned Nuthatches. Kinglet,appeared early on the morningof 21 Sep- tember.The speciestotal of 70 was about normal Page56 NorthAmerican Bird Bander Vol.23 No.2 -This year we had: Yellow-breastedChat Overpeck Park 4O5-O74O (5),Yellow-billed and Black-billed cuckoos (1 each), RidgefieldPark, New Jersey Saw-whetOwl (1) and AmericanWoodcock (3), W. Elrick (bander) whilenone appeared last year. Overpeck Park is situated on the banks of the -On 2 October we were fortunate to be in OverpeckCreek. The park is capped landfilland the "rightplace at the righttime" to carefullyand has been left to go wild. In the last few years the excitedly extract from the nets a beautifulfemale habitathas changedas the grasseshave given Northern Harrier. way to the phragmitesand smallaspen. This means that it has gone from predominantsparrow habitat The first two weeks of October were the busiest, to a now sparrow/borealspecies habitat. with our only 100+ bird day being3 Octoberwith 106 birdbanded of 25 differentspecies. The great- I have bandedat the site for three years.This •ear est diversitywas seen on 2 Octoberwith 29 spe- netswere open on 46 days,daybreak until 9.00am, cies out of 58 birds. and sometimeswe continuedinto the early after- noon.I was veryfortunate to havetwo experienced We thoughtthat it wouldbe interestingto compare Britishbanders to assist me, which allowed for more the 1987 and 1997 yearsto see howthings have birdsthan normalto be caught and processed.In changedin ten years (see tables below). the past three years, I have moved the nets fre- quentlyin orderto findthe optimumcatching paths as the birds forage around the field. This year I 1987 1997 moved five nets into a line west to east which al- lowedme to coverthe aspenstand better and may Total Birds Banded 1085 1680 be the reasonfor the larger catch of warblersand catbirds. Number of Species 73 75

Total Net Hours 3355 7323 Highlights included two Clay-colored Sparrows, seven ConnecticutWarblers, and large numbers Birds/100 Net Hours 32 23 of Lincoln'sSparrow (45) and Traill's Flycatcher (34), as well as one catch of 27 Bobolinkin the same 40-foot net.

# Banded #Banded (and New species includedGray-cheeked Thrush (1), '87 p os ition)'97 OrchardOriole, (3), Rose-breastedGrosbeak (3), Gray Catbird 298 261 (2) WarblingVireo (3), PurpleFinch (1), Bay-breasted Warbler (1), AmericanWoodcock (1) and Killdeer MyrtleWarbler 109 437 (1) (1). This broughtthe three-yearcumulative species total to 98. Changes of note from previous Red-eyed Vireo 48 65 (4) ,ears:

Brown Creeper 45 Species 1995 1996 1997

White-thr.Sparrow 45 55 (6) Com. Yellowthroat 35 49 214

Golden-cr.Kinglet 35 60 (5) Gray Catbird 9 28 17

Corn.Yellowthroat 35 115 (3) Myrtle Warble r 461 83 341

BI.-thr. Blue Warbler 30 - Lincoln's Sparrow 5 24 45

American Redstart 29 45 (8) Indigo Bunting 7 5 25

Swainson's Thrush 29 - Song Sparrow 217 404 204

Apr.- Jun.1998 NorthAmerican Bird Bander Page57 Island Beach State Park 395-0740 centered at about the same latitude as Island aeach New Jersey (lB) or south of it. None of them swept northwest Bruce Adams, Mary Doscher, Eileen & Glenn to southeast at latitudes north of lB. I think that the Mahler, John Miller, Lawrence Pharo, Robert frontal-pressurecell sweepingnorthwest to south- Yunick (banders) east or north to south is essentialto bring birdsto Assistants:Robert Pantie, Robert Miller,Raymond lB. Past remembrancesof great flightswere on oc- Miller, Marlene Miller casionswhen the jet stream and the high-pressure cells were to the north." Duringthe fall 1997 bandingseason, seven banders operated six bandingstations at Island Beach There were no outstandingflight days reported State Park, between 23 August and 30 October. this season. Peak flights occurred as follows: One or more of those stationswas in operationfor No. of # of 41 days duringthat 68 day period;there were five Birds Birds/net bandingdays in August,13 in September,and 23 Date (# stations oper.) hr. in October. Only one day (2 October)saw fourof the stationsin operationsimultaneously; there were 2 October (4) 330 2.0 three days with three stations active, seven days 7 October (2) 297 3.1 with two stationsactive and 30 days with only a singlestation active. 8 October (2) 271 2.5 11 October (1) 235 5.2 Results for the season, while not as bad as last year'sdismal results, were stillbelow average. (Note r'he "bread-and-butter" s•ecies banded at Island that in the followingdiscussion, the term "recent Beach (those averagingover 200 individualsper years"refers to the period1987-96). The 2947 birds year)were all downin numbers,some significantly, bandedthis seasonwas about half of the average as shown in the followingtable. for recentyears (4084), butthe 2232 totalnet hours BrownCreeper was the only speciesabove aver- was also well below the recent average (4084). age on a per-net-hourbasis. Golden-crowned King- Sincethe numberof daysof bandingcoverage was let, the species banded in the largest numbers, down only slightly,80% of the recent average, the were down by almosthalf on a per-net-hourbasis differencebetween the large drop in net hoursand # the smaller drop in the days of bandingcan be at- Banded "Recent" Birds/- "Recent" % of tributed, as it was last year, to two factors.First, Species in '97 Avg. 100 NH Avg. Avg. there were relativelyfew days on which more than Gol.-cr.KJngtet 434 1478 19.4 36.2 54% one bandingstation was in operation;and second, due to the lackof majorflights, the bandingopera- MyrtleWarbler 291 758 13.4 18.6 72% tionswere frequentlyterminated earlier in the day White-thr.Spar. 308 615 13.8 15.1 91% than usual.Birds per net hourwas 1.32, only 77% of the recentaverage and the thirdlowest net-hour GrayCatbird 210 576 9.4 14.1 67% average in that period. Sl.-col. Junco 210 335 9.4 11.0 85% BrownCreeper 268 335 12.0 8.0 150% The followingcomments from Bob Yunickprovide some interestingspeculations on possiblecauses Ruby-cr.Kinglet 161 319 7.2 7.8 92% forthe lackof migrants."Birdswere disappointingly Com. Yellowthr. 168 318 7.5 7.8 96% few in kindand number,despite seemingly favor- able weather; i.e., NW wind, high pressure, and SongSpar. 97 274 4.6 7.2 I 64% clear nightskies. Based on past experience,these and in terms of raw numbers were about 30% of conditionsshould have broughtthree to five times average! as many birds.My only speculationon why there were no blitzflights is as follows:almost all the high "Highlight"of the season includeda Clay-colored pressuresystems that came duringthat week were Sparrowon 27 September,a Black-cappedChicka- dee on 30 September (onlyour third individualof

Page58 NorthAmerican Bird Bander Vol.23 No.2 this speciesin the last 11 years), a Vesper Spar- Also of note is a reportfrom Mary Doscherthat a row on 26 October (the second individualin that bandedGray Catbirdshe capturedat IslandBeach same time span), nine Lincoln'sSparrow, five on 8 May 1997, had originallybeen bandedon 31 White-crownedSparrow, a PhiladelphiaVireo on 7 August1996 at Block Island by Elise Lapham, October,an Orange-crownedWarbler on 17 Octo- whichrepresents a capture/recapturebetween two ber, and three HoodedWarblers ( one of whichwas differentAFR Region 1 stations! rather late, 20 October).

Inland Regional News

Inland Bird Banding Association

IBBA Meets in Nebraska

The 1998 meeting of the Inland Bird BandingAssociation will be held: 9 - 11 October 1998 at the Eppley 4-H Center Nebraska National Forest Halsey, NE

The featured speaker will be James D. Rising, author of "A Guide to Identification and Natural History of the Sparrows of the United States and Canada." He will present a workshopon grasslandspar- rowsand will also be availableto autographcopies of his book,which will be for sale at the meeting. Please contactthe followingpeople for more details about the annual meeting.

Ruth C. Green Keith Kimmerle 506 West 31 st Avenue 128 North Chesnut Bellevue, NE 68005 Columbus MS 39701 Ph: 402-292-0451 e-mail [email protected]

Apr. - Jun. 1998 North American Bird Bander Page 59