• Our first Blue Jay for the season was this hatching year bird banded on August 31st, with a bill that looked too big for its all but crestless juvenile head!

• Our first fall Yellow-billed Cuckoo on August 31 also was a hatching year bird.  Notice the bright yellow eye ring, which becomes duller grayish green as the bird ages (in Black-billed Cuckoos, the fleshy eye ring  changes from yellow in juveniles to red).

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• Our first Northern Mockingbird since July 2003--a hatching year bird banded on September 10 had a clear molt limit between its replaced tertials and its retained juvenal outer secondaries, but it had an unexpectedly brightly yellowish eye color.

 

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• Our first Wilson's Warblers, two on September 3, included this hatching year male.  Notice the young bird's shiny black cap feathers are thinly tipped with olive green.

• An adult female Tennessee Warbler banded on September 4

• An adult female Golden-winged Warbler, also banded on September 4 (this is an early migrating species that we often "miss" in the official fall banding season)

• An adult male Blackpoll Warbler on September 10

• A hatching year Philadelphia Vireo on September 4

• A hatching year Yellow-throated Vireo on September 9

• A White-eyed (gray-eyed hatching year) Vireo on September 11

• An adult male Blackburnian Warbler (not a new species for the season, but a new age/sex class for the species for this fall at Powdermill) on September 3

• Lastly, a hatching year Blue-gray Gnatcatcher--again, not a first for the fall banding season; in fact, probably the last of the species we'll see in our nets until early next spring!  It was banded on the 11th, and only eleven BGGNs have ever been banded on a later date than this in the 43 years of fall banding at Powdermill.

Last Updated on 09/13/04
By Adrienne J. Leppold and
Robert S. Mulvihill