Clay-colored Sparrow! Yippee!

Amazing how one bird can really make your day! Like this beautiful sparrow here. This is a Clay-colored Sparrow, a rare bird to the Eastern Shore. Although I would suspect that this species shows up here on the shore every fall, they are always in very, very low numbers. And so catching one is even more unlikely. But it does happen. Since 1996, only one other Clay-colored has been banded here. And historically, only 19 have been banded here since 1963. And since I just love sparrows, you know I was extremely excited! I know some people have problems identifying this species from Chipping sparrows, but here are a few helpful hints (you can use the picture of the Chipping Sparrow a few posts below to have a comparison). Clay-coloreds lack the black line that is in front of the eye. They also have brown rumps, whereas, Chipping have gray. Also, note the back color. More tan color in Clay-coloreds, rusty-brown in Chipping. Catching this one gave us 92 species for the season!

A few more Ibis pictures!

I received a few more ibis pictures from John Fox and I just loved them, so I just had to put them on the blog here! One of the pictures is the White-faced Ibis that was seen at the Ramp pond on the Eastern Shore of Virginia NWR a few weeks back but in a sweet flying pic! Makes you want to drool! Great picture!
The other picture is one of the White Ibis that was hanging around at that time as well, and once again, a great flying shot!

Makes me sick just thinking about how bad my camera is! I could never get a shot like either one of these, BUT as long as friends send me the great pictures they take, I guess I can save the money! ;-)
I would like to thank John Fox for the pics!

Finally, a Purple Finch!

After reading about how common Purple Finches were out in western Virginia, I have been going crazy waiting for them to show up here on the shore. Over the last week or so, there have been an increase in Purple Finch numbers here on the shore, but most of them have just been flyovers. But I have been somewhat hopeful. Finally, we caught one today. This beautiful bird came early in the morning and was somewhat associated with a group of American Goldfinches. Although this bird looks like a female, we cannot determine the sex of this bird because it is a hatch year bird (a bird that was hatched out this summer). When it comes to first fall birds, males and females look identical. Now, if we can only catch a “purple” Purple Finch!!

Northern Goshawk Banded

I hear Joe say over the radio... "The season is complete". I'm not really sure what he means and then I hear "Female Northern Goshawk".... are you kidding me?... he wasn't. A big congratulations to Joe for getting this bird today. This is the largest accipiter in North America. What a thrill! It weighed over 1 kg (the size of a hefty Red-tailed Hawk). You can see the light supercilium (line above the eye), thick dark breast streaking, broad wings and wavy tail bars that are good ID points for Goshawks. Good birds to you all. Jeff

Chipping Sparrow with half a bill

We see a few deformities every now and then and many times it is part of the bill that shows the deformity. Like this Chipping Sparrow we caught today (20th Nov). The bill was mostly there but the end of it was...well...just missing. The bird was rather healthy however so it seems it has learned to overcome the deformity and live a fairly decent life. It appeared that the sides of the bill were formed well enough that it could crack and peel seeds like a normal bill would, which might be the reason this bird was doing well.

Red November?

Well, the month is Red-tailed at least. We've been having pretty slow flights overall. But, the Red-tailed Hawks are flying in pretty good numbers (such as this juvenile on the left). There were five more travelling with this one in a tight kettle. Good birds to you all! -Jeff-

White-faced Ibis near Kiptopeke!

Here is a picture that was take by Steve Thornhill on the 12th November at the boat ramp pond (on Ramp Lane) on the Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge. A very rare visitor to Virginia, this White-faced Ibis is easily confused with the much more expected Glossy Ibis mostly this time of year. But with close examination, you will notice that this bird has the nice red eye, pink skin around the eye, and no pale blue line from above the eye to the top of the bill and the leg color shows a reddish color. This bird was one of the excellent finds over the weekend by the many birders that come here for a "rarities round". Other good birds seen in the area include, Western Kingbird, Cave Swallow, Black-and-white Warbler, Dickcissel, Baltimore Oriole, Blue Grosbeak, and a Ruby-throated Hummingbird. Nice finds over the last few days include Golden Eagle, Northern Goshawk, and Sora.

The one that didn't get away

So here is the story. A few days ago, while checking the nets, we had a small flock of House Finches fly into our brush pile. While watching the flock, they busted out of the brush pile, with one bird flying into one of the nets. Of course watching nets is like watching a pot of water to boil, the bird hit the net and bounced out and flew off with the rest of the flock. Just seems to be that kind of season here this year. Well, as luck would have it, we got a second chance. On the 5th Nov., we finally caught our first House Finch of the season. This time, we were not watching the net! ;-) I know, most of you are pretty use to seeing House Finches at your feeders, and yes, they are fairly common here, but here at the banding station, they are not a species we catch many of. Since 1963, only 24 have been banded here before this season. Ironically, 16 of them have come since 1995. So for the last 10 years, we have been averaging one a season here. So this bird might be all we get this fall.

We can tell this is a House Finch by it's large slightly down curved bill and the lack of a large white supercilium (stripe over the eye).

Rusty Blackbirds!!!!!

You are looking at a few pictures of some of the Rusty Blackbirds we caught here on the 5th Nov! And the exciting thing about it, is that only three have been banded here since 1963! And only one since 1993 (one was banded in 2005). On the 5th we banded SIX!!!!!! These pictures are of 3 different individuals. As most of you might know, I was stoked about catching them! They are just super cool birds!
Although they are fairly common birds here in the fall, just like other blackbirds, we don't catch them here. Once again, like the Common Grackle, our net locations don't really give us a chance to catch them. Sometimes things just work out right for us!
On this particular day, there were lots of Grackles, Rustys, and Robins that descended into the banding station. We caught 5 of 6 of each species, and were very happy with that! Every fall, blackbirds pile into the park for a day or two, then leave. The 5th was our lucky day! I would love to see this become an annual thing here, but I am afraid I am just dreaming. I guess I will just have to live with the memories and the pics of the day that we actually caught blackbirds!

One beautiful grackle??

Ok, so I know that most people don't care much for Common Grackles, but I do. They are just beautiful! And you really can't see all the colors in them unless you are very close to them, or in my case, in the hand. And truthfully, this picture does not do the colors justice.
Of an interesting note, we don't catch grackles here at Kiptopeke very often. In fact, the five we caught on the 5 Nov, were the first grackles I have seen banded here since my first year here in 2001. And in fact, there has only been one other grackle banded here since 1991! Although they are common migrants through the area, we don't catch them here, mainly because of the locations of our nets. So it was a real treat to catch five beautiful males Monday!

Northern Saw-whet Owl banded 11/5

It appears that this year is going to be a big year for Northern Saw-whet Owls here in the Kiptopeke area, as well as, most of Virginia. There are several Saw-whet Owl banding stations located through out Virginia and they are all reporting record or near record numbers for this season already. Northern banding sites have been catching large number of Saw-whets and it is predicted that more are on their way south. So it is hopeful that this is just the start here. We have caught two Saw-whets so far this season with the first being a recapture from the nearby owl banding effort here (run by the Center for Conservation Biology) and the other this little cutie, an unbanded adult. A species we rarely catch here (only one since 1994), I am hopeful that we will catch a few more before the end of the banding season (which ends 11/22).