Fall bird banding at Barr starts tomorrow, Saturday, August 25. We were out on Thursday doing training for our naturalist volunteers. We opened the 12 front nets and caught 30 birds in our one and only run. There were the usual chickadees and House Wrens, 4 warbler species and 2 vireo species, including a Cassin's, suggesting that we might be in for an interesting and busy fall.
As we start into fall I want to offer a quick summary of spring banding at Chatfield. The most noticeable thing about last spring was how few birds were caught. At 447 individual birds, it was the lowest since 2012 and 40% below 2017. Almost all migrating species were below normal.
The Yellow Warbler is our most commonly caught species at Chatfield and the species we've tracked most carefully over the years. We banded only 51 YEWAs this year, fewer than any prior year. (We banded 107 in 2017.) However, the number of returns – birds banded in prior years and recaught – was about normal at 29. This included one from each 2011 and 2012 and four from 2013. The one from 2011 was banded as an adult, making her at least nine years old. Interestingly, the 2011 and 2012 birds had not been caught again until this year – how did we miss them in all those intervening years?!
The best bird of the season was our 100th species caught at Chatfield, a spectacular Prothonotary Warbler.
There are lots of possible reasons for the low numbers this spring at Chatfield. One is the conditions last fall - We (and the birds) were plagued by hot, dry weather following a summer of forest fires in the areas north of us where the birds that migrate through eastern Colorado breed. Even for the birds that survived the heat and fires, I wondered if their health might be compromised, making it more difficult for them to survive their migration.
So, I'm hoping the birds that made it back have had a great breeding season, and we will see lots of young birds coming through on migration.....Stay tuned!
Open 6 mornings a week; closed Mondays, through October 14.
Come visit!
Meredith McBurney
Bander/Biologist
Barr Lake Banding Station
Bird Conservancy of the Rockies
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