Greetings from Appledore!
Strong activity continued on Saturday, with a season-high total of 181 birds banded — including 75 Common Yellowthroats! The morning was busy not only with birds but with a bird banding group led by Eric Masterson that came over from Star Island for the morning. Bill did yeoman’s duty taking groups of birders on net runs and teaching them about mist netting, and everyone pitched in to make sure the visitors were able to see plenty of birds and learn about the banding operation and about the Mobile Avian Recording Studio (MARS). Thanks to all!
Anthony was a very welcome arrival at 10:30, providing some badly-needed additional help and enabling us to open all the nets for the first time in a couple of days. We did collapse the nets for about 20 minutes in the afternoon because Captain Ben was nice enough to mow the grass in the net lanes for us — thanks, Captain Ben!
Banding highlights included another Bay-breasted Warbler, the first Red-eyed Vireos of the season, and the first flycatchers of the season. We also caught a very interesting adult male American Redstart with salmon-colored tail feathers on the right side and yellow on the left!
Cheers from Liz, Anthony, Bill, Lauren and Katherine!
