With just 28 birds to go to reach our milestone 500,000th bird (including original bandings plus recaptures) recorded for the Powdermill program, this year's enthusiatic and able banding interns, Annie Lindsay and Brian Jones, opened 46 mist nets beginning at 5:45am on July 11, 2001.  Weather that morning was nearly perfect for banding, and we felt certain that we would have no difficulty capturing 28 birds during the day, but timing is everything, and there was a possible complication.  We were scheduled to give a banding demonstration to a group of thirty 9-12 year old Powdermill nature day-campers at 10:00am.  We hoped that the milestone capture would occur either well before or well after that, so that we could give both the children and the milestone event all the attention they deserved.

As it turned out, timing was on our side--18 of the 28 birds needed had been caught and processed by 7:45am.  A quick phone call was placed to Rick Schwab, the ever hard-working and, thankfully, easy-going editor of our local weekly newspaper, The Ligonier Echo, who we caught at home just  as he was heading to take his morning shower (unfortunately, timing wasn't on Rick's side--and we got him out of bed for the 400,000th banding, too!)

Before making the next net round, we placed our bets as to which species the 500,000th would be and then headed out as a group--Bob Mulvihill and interns, Brian, Annie, and Matt Demarines, led by the program's originator and chief bander, Bob Leberman.

The first net checked produced one banded and one unbanded juvenile Song Sparrow.
The next eight nets were empty, but Annie removed an unbanded Tufted Titmouse from the ninth net checked (three down, seven to go!).

Net fourteen had an unbanded Common Yellowthroat juvenile.  Nets nineteen and twenty each had an unbanded American Robin.  Net twenty had two unbanded Cedar Waxwings and a banded White-eyed Vireo, which was carefully removed by Matt.  Only one to go!

As we rounded the corner, our chief spied number 500,000 ahead in the twenty-third net of the round.

What was it?  Which of us had guessed right (or at least closest, taxonomically speaking)?  Bob L. had guessed American Redstart; Bob M. guessed Veery; Brian guessed Yellow Warbler; Matt guessed Song Sparrow; and Annie guessed Gray Catbird...

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