...wait for it...
...almost there...
...DARY day.
A short background. On the 24th of September, it started as a somewhat calm day. We caught a few birds...about 25 if I recollect correctly. Over the course of the morning here on Metinic, the wind was gradually picking up, blowing from the south at about 10 miles an hour at times. We had a few birds flying around here and there, including a few raptors on the island.
At around noon time, we closed down the banding station. At the same time, we noticed the wind beginning to shift, and the seas get a bit choppy. The wind began to blow from the west, and over the course of the afternoon, it moved to come from the north to northwest direction. And the wind was building in intensity as well.
Our personal weather station from the front yard on the morning of the 25th. Winds were blowing between 10 to 20 mph from the north. Overnight, the maximum wind speed was 25 mph. At the banding station, it was windy, but not overly. It is slightly on the lee side of a north wind due to a mild ridge, and we have some mist nets that are sheltered from any wind.
For those who are bird biologists, you know what this means. Let me sum up the important detail: a previously south dominant wind, turning to the north in front of a cold front.
The definitive "fallout" conditions.
For the uninitiated: a fallout occurs with migrating birds. Songbirds (warblers, vireos, thrushes, etc) fly overnight, and prefer to fly with a tail wind. BUT, when the wind is really strong, they can sometimes get blown off course, and will land on the first land they find when they get tired. I have never experienced a full-fledged fallout before.
Until today. Wow.
We have 18 mist nets. When we began our work today, we saw and heard birds, well, everywhere. We opened nets 2-11, and 17 and 18. The other nets were subject to too much wind.
10 minutes after we opened the first nets, we went to check them (so birds don't get injured by the wind while trapped in the net). We closed net 6 at this point, deciding it was blowing too much. So, down to 11 nets total. We caught 10 birds that net walk, or so. 15 minutes later, we went back to check the nets.
1.5 hours later, we closed all the nets. We had over 120 birds to band. Birds flew into nets while we were STANDING AT THE NET REMOVING A BIRD. Unreal. Birds were flying everywhere...you were almost afraid to take a step, because you might step on a bird.
Two hours later (this is about 1130), we finished banding the last of the birds from those first two hours. We could still see birds everywhere. So we decided, what the heck, we'll open 8, 17, and 18 again (the most sheltered of the nets).
2 hours later and about 150 birds later, we closed the nets again. And continued to band all the ones we caught. I have never walked to a mist net and had it SAGGING from birds. We would check nets every 10-15 minutes...and in these 3 nets, there weren't ever fewer than 10 birds in the net. Often 20 to 30, especially net 18.
And only one of the 271 birds we caught, was caught again later in the day. Birds were dripping off the trees, literally. While taking birds out of a net (especially 17 and 18), you could see birds hopping around in the shrubs next to the net. As you walked to a net, you would see the birds you were flushing/scaring fly over and around the net as well. While we would extract birds from a net, you would see another bird fly into the net. After you had cleared a net of birds, while walking back out from the net, you would see a bird fly into the net. While we were sitting under our banding canopy, I could see birds flying around in a small clearing next to nets 17 and 18. When we closed nets and had all our birds to process, we were surrounded by all the bags we had birds in. We sometimes had up to 4 birds in a bag (only friendly species, like warblers).
It was awesome.
It is so hard to describe how fun, exciting, unreal, unbelievable, and spectacular this was. Had we had any help (and more bands...we nearly killed all our size 0 bands), we would easily have topped 500 birds, or probably 1000, even. Part of me is thankful it was as windy as it was this morning...had it been calmer, we probably would have opened ALL the nets. I don't even want to imagine what our first net run would have been like.
My time in Cibola last year in southern California had NOTHING like this. When we did the math this evening, we had a total of 28 net hours, for an average of 10 birds per net hour. Which is unbelievably good. But this number is skewed...our forest nets usually don't catch much (they are there for quality, not quantity). Eliminate our 4 forest nets (which caught 3 birds) from the equation: you have 20 net hours, and 270 birds. That is 13 birds or so per net hour...which is an UNREAL number. Normally, the number will be between .8 and 1.2 birds per net hour.
And the extra cherry, on top of the regular cherry, on top of the whipped cream, on top of the ice cream sundae which is my life...
I got number 1,128 for my world life list, and number 425 for my North America bird list. After we were all done with the banding, we did a last go round, to check to make sure we didn't leave any bird bags on the ground near nets (it was that kind of day), to check to see if the nets were still furled ok, and to return the net clothespins (we put them on the bag so we know what net a bird came from). As I walked along the forest nets, I saw, perched on a branch just above eye level, with my naked eye, one of the most handsome warblers of the northeast:
A male Black-throated Blue Warbler. Even with the unaided eye, the bird is unmistakable. I don't count birds "in the hand" on my life list...it has to be a free flying bird. I did my little life bird jig, and returned to the banding station for the rest of the clean up.
A fantastic day.
And tomorrow, we may have a repeat. We still have a stiff north breeze. Isn't life wonderful?
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