Summer 2005 < CLICK HERE for Banding Totals >

• This juxtaposition of orange and yellow isn't unusual at all--it's just what you'd expect of a second year (SY) male American Redstart undergoing its definitive prebasic molt, like this one banded on July 16.  The change from a female-like gray-green and yellow plumage following its first breeding season to the striking jet black and orange plumage it will wear in the next (when it is an ASY) is termed "delayed plumage maturation."

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• This picture of an HY Brown Trasher banded on July 16 is a highlight simply because it can be hard to fit a whole Brown Thrasher, bill to tail, in the same frame!

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• Returning to the "unusual" theme, this Hooded Warbler banded on July 20 had an unusually extensive black hood for an HY female.  Who knows, maybe her mother was the very male-like ASY female pictured on the preceding highlights page!

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• Not unexpectedly, by the last week of the summer season we were already seeing the first hints of fall migration, including this Northern Watertrush (a species not known to nest anywhere near Powdermill),

as well as freshly molted, fully independent HY warblers of local breeding species,
like this HY female Black-and-white Warbler

and this HY male
Chestnut-sided Warbler

which undoubtedly are feeling "restless," if not already migrating!

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• Finally, don't ever let it be said that Powdermill's banders don't go to some pains to bring our website visitors intimate bird portraits like this one of juvenile male Hairy Woodpecker.

 
 
 

Here's the proof!
 

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Last Updated on 08/14/05
By Robert S. Mulvihill