Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 310
I am writing this from the Crown Point Banding station where I have been camping since last week banding songbirds. This is the fiftieth year of operation there and I wasn’t here when it all started with a couple of nets in the Hawthorn trees to today when we have twenty nets spread among the Hawthorns and some out into the fields along these trees. So far, we have been doing quite well despite the rain for four of the nine days here. The net lanes are the wettest that we have ever had to walk through to set up and pick birds from the nets. We had lots of help from volunteers who helped set up the tents, canopies and nets that first day. The state staff here at the Crown Point Historic Site has been very helpful mowing the net lanes and paths to the net lanes. This helps as there are less ticks in the mowed areas. If you walk through the brushy areas or the deep grass, you will come out with ticks as most dog owners find walking their dogs here.
We’ve had lots of visitors as the site was celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Americans taking over the site here and at Ticonderoga in one fell swoop. They got all the cannons from both forts that were needed to carry on the battle to the east. They came across Lake Champlain in darkness to carry out these raids and surprise the British.
Back to the birds is what we are here for, and we got here before lots of the warblers and sparrows had gone north. For the last few years many of the little songbirds have traveled to their summer territories before we were set up, Global Warming has caused this. When they get moving and have the wind at their back they keep going. Most years the Yellow Rumped Warbler was the number one bird caught here one year over 600, but just three years ago we only caught one. This year we did get ahead of most of that migration, and we have caught over 150, many older males and females which are normally the first ones to go north. Right off the bat they were in competition as we call it with the Blue Jays and I don’t think they are going to catch them as the Jays are at 182. It was at one time a battle of American Goldfinch and the Yellow Rumped Warblers, but I don’t think the Goldfinch went south this winter and lived off the Yellow Birch seeds and White Cedar cone seeds along with the Pine Siskins. If my feeder was any indication, they were here all winter and didn’t move south and we have only caught about ten here so far. Two species that we very seldom catch here, but we caught this year were Mourning Warbler-one male and the Northern Parula Warbler at four with two more today 5/13.
A couple other birds to note were listed in the list for Crown Point of Mockingbirds, Thrashers and Allies. I can only recall catching one Mockingbird in all the years I’ve been here. Well, we caught one this year when a school group was here, and one student got to release it for their student bird. We have seen and heard them but not caught them regularly. We caught several Brown Thrashers in years past and then didn’t catch them for a few years. Their picture is on the cover of Birds of Crown Point State Historic Site, and we did catch a couple this year. The other bird in the group is the Gray Catbird and we catch plenty of them.
Another bird that does a lot of calling around the area is the Red Bellied Woodpecker, and it is not caught every year, but we got a nice female this year. The Pileated Woodpecker has been around all week, but we have not had it hit our nets yet. We have caught one each year for a few years and last year we even had a recapture of a bird from two years back.
Speaking of returns we had many this year, nothing unusual yet but there are three days to go as we are done here at noon on Saturday.
More bird stories from Crown Point, but that’s another story. See ya.
Photo above: Death Brook Falls, Raquette Lake
