Blackburnian Warbler 9/25/06

Blackburnian Warblers are a very uncommon capture here at Kiptopeke. This species is not a very common migrant through the area during the fall, and to make matters worse, they tend to stay higher up in the tree canopy and don't drop down to mist net level very often. In the last 12 years, only 10 have been banded here for an average of less than one a season. Since 1994, the most ever caught in one season is only two. With the capture of this one, I guess we are halfway to a ten year high! ha ha ha
This bird was only the third Blackburnian that has been banded here since 2001 so you can only imagine how excited I was to catch and band this hatch year female on the 25th of September.

Blackpoll Warbler 9/25/06

Blackpoll Warblers are also caught annually here with some years being much better than others. The Kiptopeke banding station has been averaging about 21 birds a season over the last 10 years, but this is a bit misleading. In 1999, a total of 85 Blackpolls were banded: a huge year! Although it is still too early to tell how this season will turn out, we have already caught 6 so far this season (as of 9/26/06). This species is one that many birders often call Bay-polls when birding in the fall because of their similarity to Bay-breasted Warblers. Here in this picture you can see the faint streaks on the breast that helps IDing this bird as a Blackpoll. Also, and a little bander secret, note the toe color. Blackpolls have a somewhat yellow tarsus and toes, where as, Bay-breasted have black/gray tarsus and toes. Also Pine Warblers are often very similar to these two, but they tend to have black/gray tarsus and gray toes with yellow foot pads! It seems a bit sneaky for banders, but hey, we look for these things!

Blue-winged Warbler 9/20/06

Blue-winged Warblers like this one pictured here are annual birds here at Kiptopeke but we usually catch them in August so it was a bit of a surprise that we caught this one on the 20th of September. They are always beautiful birds. The ten year average for Blue-wings here is about 4 birds a season. The most banded in a season during the last ten years was in 2001 when 7 individuals were banded. So far this season, we have banded two.
This little fella has a bit of a yellow wash to both wing bars. Although it is not safe to say this bird has no Golden-winged Warbler genes, most to all of the Blue-wings we capture here have this light yellow wash to the greater and median coverts. This bird is also a hatch year bird which might play a part in the yellow wash.

All grins from the intern!

Here is a picture of my intern, Andrew Odell Jr. He just finished up his internship here this fall and is now back home in his lovely state of Pennsylvania. He started here on the 28th of August and interned until today (18th of Sept.). I have known Andrew and his family ever since I came to Kiptopeke in 2001. I will miss him and that cheezy smile (take a look at the picture and you'll know what I am talking about)!
In the picture, he is holding the Green Heron we caught on the 6th Of Sept. I think he is excited but hard to say by the picture. I think it is more a face of fear than anything else! Notice how he will not take his eyes of the bill. ha ha ha Smart move Andrew. Holding a Green Heron is not worth losing an eye over!
Andrew is planning on being back at the station later this season in November.

Cape May Warbler banded 9/17

Cape May Warblers, like this one, are another species that we do not catch many of every fall. Typically we only catch 3-4 per year and amazingly the 15 year high for captures for a season is only five. So it is always a treat when we catch one. That said, we were pretty excited when we caught this adult female on the 17 Sept. Usually we only catch hatch year birds here so they are much less beautiful, leaning more to the side of down right drab!

Black-throated Green Warbler banded 9/17

Here is a picture of the Black-throated Green Warbler we banded on the 17th of Sept. Although not a unusual bird for the area, these guys tend to stay in the upper canopy of the forest here, therefore we don't catch too many of these each fall. We have been averaging about three Greens a fall since 2001.

Connecticut Warbler banded 9/16

There is a bad picture of the Connecticut Warbler we banded this morning (9/16). We caught this bird along with about 30 other birds on our first net run of the morning. After we processed the bird, I quickly tried taking pictures of it, but the low light level and the un-corporative bird, made for a pretty messy picture. This was the best picture I took! So forgive me.
Connecticut Warblers are an annual bird here but we usually don't catch many of them. In the last ten years, we have banded one every season, but only average 3 a season during that span. The high year was 1999 when NINE were caught in a season. This bird represents are first for the season and hopefully not the last.

Philadelphia Vireo Banded 9/16

Here is a picture of the Philadelphia Vireo we banded at Kiptopeke this morning. Although not a rare bird for the area, it is not see very often. Most years we tend to catch about one or two a season. This individual is the second one for this season already. Do you think number three is just around the corner? Sure hope so!

Season Totals as of the 14th September

Here are the season totals for the fall season as of the 14 Sept. Since the start of the season (15 Aug) we have missed four days due to weather. We missed 8/16 due to rain, 8/31 and 9/1 due to tropical storm Ernesto, and 9/14 due to rain. The remaining days we were open and banding. As of 14 Sept., we have banded 939 individuals of 54 species.

GREEN HERON	1		NORTHERN MOCKINGBIRD	46
MOURNING DOVE	1		BROWN THRASHER	3
YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO	8		BLUE-WINGED WARBLER	1
CHUCK-WILL'S-WIDOW	1		NORTHERN PARULA	8
RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER	1		YELLOW WARBLER	13
DOWNY WOODPECKER	3		CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER	1
YELLOW-SHAFTED FLICKER	3		MAGNOLIA WARBLER	17
EASTERN WOOD-PEWEE	3		BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLER	33
YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER	6		PINE WARBLER	3
ACADIAN FLYCATCHER	1		PRAIRIE WARBLER	10
TRAILL'S FLYCATCHER	67		WESTERN PALM WARBLER	3
LEAST FLYCATCHER	7		BLACK-AND-WHITE WARBLER	42
GREAT CRESTED FLYCATCHER	4		AMERICAN REDSTART	250
EASTERN KINGBIRD	4		PROTHONOTARY WARBLER	2
WHITE-EYED VIREO	8		WORM-EATING WARBLER	2
PHILADELPHIA VIREO	1		OVENBIRD	26
RED-EYED VIREO	44		NORTHERN WATERTHRUSH	65
BLUE JAY	1		MOURNING WARBLER	2
CAROLINA CHICKADEE	7		COMMON YELLOWTHROAT	58
TUFTED TITMOUSE	3		YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT	14
CAROLINA WREN	24		SUMMER TANAGER	1
HOUSE WREN	3		CHIPPING SPARROW	1
BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER	1		FIELD SPARROW	12
VEERY	75		NORTHERN CARDINAL	29
SWAINSON'S THRUSH	9		BLUE GROSBEAK	3
AMERICAN ROBIN	2		INDIGO BUNTING	1
GRAY CATBIRD	2		BALTIMORE ORIOLE	3
			TOTAL	939

banding totals from 9/1 to 9/10

Howdy all,
Here are the banding totals for the time period 1 Sept through the 10 Sept. Since we didn't band on the 1 Sept because of tropical storm Ernesto, the totals are for only nine days of banding. No other days were missed during that time span.

GREEN HERON	1
YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO	1
RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER	1
DOWNY WOODPECKER	1
NORTHERN FLICKER	2
EASTERN WOOD-PEWEE	2
YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER	1
TRAILL'S FLYCATCHER	22
LEAST FLYCATCHER	1
GREAT CRESTED FLYCATCHER	1
EASTERN KINGBIRD	2
WHITE-EYED VIREO	4
RED-EYED VIREO	37
BLUE JAY	1
CAROLINA CHICKADEE	5
TUFTED TITMOUSE	2
CAROLINA WREN	2
HOUSE WREN	1
BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER	1
VEERY	49
SWAINSON’S THRUSH	7
AMERICAN ROBIN	2
NORTHERN MOCKINGBIRD	15
NORTHERN PARULA	3
YELLOW WARBLER	3
CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER	1
MAGNOLIA WARBLER	10
BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLER	24
PRAIRIE WARBLER	2
PALM WARBLER (WESTERN)	2
BLACK-AND-WHITE WARBLER	16
AMERICAN REDSTART	97
OVENBIRD	18
NORTHERN WATERTHRUSH	46
MOURNING WARBLER	2
COMMON YELLOWTHROAT	39
YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT	6
NORTHERN CARDINAL	13
BLUE GROSBEAK	3
BALTIMORE ORIOLE	2
AUGUST TOTAL	448

Green Heron banded 9/6/06

We banded the stations second ever Green Heron today. This young bird was caught in one of our nets that is close to a now flooded pool, thanks to tropical storm Ernesto. At the beginning of the season, this pool was completely dry. Guess 25 inches of rain in three weeks will fill just about anything. This is also the same net that caught one last year (fall 2005) on the 10th of October. Note how small a Green Heron really is!

Tired Sooty Tern

After the passage of tropical storm Ernesto, many tropical terns and other pelagic species were displaced by the storm. This tired Sooty Tern was found about 5 miles to the north of the banding station in a farm field near Custis Tomb off of Arlington Rd. Obviously it is a digiscoped picture but the bird was only 30 meters away. Other birds displaced by Ernesto seen in the area included all three Jaegers, three species of Storm-petrels, Arctic-Sooty-Bridled Terns, Brown Noddies (possible Black Noddies too!) and a Bulwer's Petrel just to name a few!

15th-31st August 06 totals (i.e. season totals)

Here are the banding totals from the 15th August to the 31st August. Not the best start, but also not the worst. Actually pretty average.

YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO	7
CHUCK-WILL'S-WIDOW	1
DOWNY WOODPECKER	2
NORTHERN FLICKER	1
EASTERN WOOD-PEWEE	1
YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER	3
TRAILL'S FLYCATCHER	39
LEAST FLYCATCHER	6
GREAT CRESTED FLYCATCHER	1
EASTERN KINGBIRD	2
WHITE-EYED VIREO	4
RED-EYED VIREO	4
TUFTED TITMOUSE	1
CAROLINA WREN	21
VEERY	1
NORTHERN MOCKINGBIRD	31
BROWN THRASHER	2
YELLOW WARBLER	9
MAGNOLIA WARBLER	1
PRAIRIE WARBLER	8
BLACK-AND-WHITE WARBLER	15
AMERICAN REDSTART	80
PROTHONOTARY WARBLER	2
WORM-EATING WARBLER	1
OVENBIRD	2
NORTHERN WATERTHRUSH	8
COMMON YELLOWTHROAT	5
YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT	8
SUMMER TANAGER	1
CHIPPING SPARROW	1
FIELD SPARROW	12
NORTHERN CARDINAL	16
INDIGO BUNTING	1
BALTIMORE ORIOLE	1
AUGUST TOTAL	298

VA's first documented MacGillivray's Warbler!

The first documented MacGillivray's Warbler (Oporornis tolmiei) in Virginia! We caught this bird at the Kiptopeke banding station on the 8 November 2005.

Directions to Kiptopeke banding station

The banding station is located inside the Kiptopeke State Park which is on the eastern shore of Virginia. There is only two ways to get to the park for most visitors, from the north or from the south. Route 13 bisects the eastern shore and is the road to take to get to the state park. If you are coming from the north, travel south on Route 13 until you are about 6 miles from the southern tip. If you are coming from the south you must use the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (CBBT). Once on the eastern shore the state park is 6 miles north of the tip. Kiptopeke State Park is located on the west side of Route 13 and is well marked. NOTE: there is a $12 fee to cross the CBBT, one way. There is also a small fee to enter the park, a few dollars.
Once you enter the park go about 2 blocks and take the second left (across from the campground road) to a little parking lot. Park here. Follow the dirt road that goes south towards the forested part. You will pass a gazebo and when you get to the fork in the road, take the right fork. Follow road to the butterfly gardens and then go left. From here you will see a sign for the banding station. The actually banding area is off to the right of the sign in the trees and is very easy to see. The total walking mileage is less than a quarter mile. Take five minutes at most.
The hawkwatch platform is just north of the banding station, roughly 300 yards, near the playgrounds, in a clearing. Also very easy to see, its a large platform! Just to the west of the platform is the hawk banding station-NOTE: the hawk banding station is not open to the public because of the need for concealment to get the hawks to fly in. However, the platform is open to the public and if a hawk is caught while you are there, the CVWO staff will do its best to give you a hawk demonstration, bring the newly caught hawk up to the platform for the demo and released from there.
We encourage visitors! So bring your camera, binoculars, and your questions!
Hope to see you at Kiptopeke!