Banders & Birders, Our final weekend of banding brought the late October influx of sparrows....two weeks late. This weekend, particularly Saturday, was one of records. This is only the third year (of six) that we've stayed open after November 15, so such late records as the Hermit Thrushes (one each day), Eastern Phoebes (2 on Saturday), Winter Wrens (3 on Saturday), American Robins (4 on Saturday), and Swamp Sparrows (2 on Saturday) were probably not particularly late. On Saturday, about 1000 American Robins passed along the beach and over the nets, but only 4 were captured! Not much in the way of wild food crop in our area this year. But, the Gray Catbird on Saturday and the Brown Thrashers (1 each day!) were definitely late. The sparrow influx also brought us record numbers of Song Sparrows (10 on Saturday), White-throated Sparrows (26 on Saturday), and Fox Sparrows with 6 on Saturday and 7 on Sunday, and brought our numbers of American Tree Sparrows into a more normal range. We caught only a very small portion of the White-throated Sparrows that were moving along the beach on Saturday and to a lesser extent on Sunday. Our previous record YEAR for Fox Sparrows was 7, so the 7 on Sunday was an excellent number. Our first (and only) Dark-eyed Juncos of the season were caught on Saturday, which is more than a month later than usual. Saturday's 84 birds was a record for us for any day in November (81 was previous record) and the weekend's total of 137 beat the previous late November (16-30) period's record of 23 set in 2000. On Sunday, our last day, we added a new species banded at the passerine station, though not new for the Observatory. A Red-tailed Hawk somehow got caught in one of our 30mm mesh passerine nets! Surprisingly, neither the net nor the bander (me) was damaged in the process. We had to take this bird to the raptor banding station to be weighed, since we didn't have a container to hold it safely during this part of data collection. Photo highlights will be posted on the HBMO website (www.hbmo.org) in the coming week, and will include photos of a dark morph (Harlan's intergrade???) Red-tailed Hawk caught at the raptor station on Saturday (some photos already posted). I will post a brief summary of our fall season within the coming week, which extended from mid-July through mid-November. This will cover numbers banded only, and cannot include interesting information on our diverse studies ranging from age/sex ratios of hummingbirds, stopover ecology information, and data on our newly initiated directional tendency study. Some of this will be published in the more extensive summary in the journal of the Ontario Bird Banders Association, while some will be published in various ornithological journals in the future. Summaries for the two days follows: November 16, 2002 (0 degrees C all day, overcast with light snow in early a.m., trace snow all day, wind N at 10-12 mph) Open from 06:00 - 14:30 E.S.T. (8.5 hours, 76.50 Net Hours), one net was seriously damaged and had to be taken down. Total Banded: 84, plus 2 recaptures Eastern Phoebe - 2 (record late; record season = 8) Winter Wren - 3 (record late; record season = 9) Golden-crowned Kinglet - 12 (1 recapture, banded 26 Nov and recaptured on 3 & 9 Nov also) Ruby-crowned Kinglet - 2 Hermit Thrush - 1 (record late, but see 17 Nov) American Robin - 4 (record one day total; record late) Gray Catbird - 1 (record late) Brown Thrasher - 1 (record late, but see 17 Nov) American Tree Sparrow - 1 Fox Sparrow - 6 (record day, but see 17 Nov; 1 recapture banded 10 Nov) Song Sparrow - 10 (record day) Swamp Sparrow - 2 (record late) White-throated Sparrow - 26 (plus 1 released unbanded; record day) Dark-eyed (Slate-colored) Junco - 5 (first of season) American Goldfinch - 8 (1 banded 2 Nov found dead near feeders, 10.7 grams) Thank you to banders Bob Hall-Brooks, and Carl Pascoe, and to assistants Rachel Powless and Jason Sodergren. November 17, 2002 (1-2 degrees C, overcast, wind NE at 3-5 mph) Open from 7:00 - 15:00 E.S.T. (8.0 hours, 80.00 Net Hours) yesterday's damaged net replaced. Total Banded: 53, plus 6 recaptures Red-tailed Hawk - 1 (first for passerine station) Golden-crowned Kinglet - 1 (3 recaptures, banded 2 nov, 3 Nov, 16 Nov) Ruby-crowned Kinglet - 2 Hermit Thrush - 1 (record late) Brown Thrasher - 1 (record late; record season = 4) Northern Cardinal - 1 American Tree Sparrow - 8 Fox Sparrow - 7 (record day; record season = 20, previously 7) Song Sparrow - 4 (record season = 19, previously 8) White-throated Sparrow - 12 (record season = 79, previously 55) American Goldfinch - 15 (3 recaptures, all banded 16 Nov) Thank you to banders Carl Pascoe and Steve Greidanus, and assistants Rachel Powless, Bob Hall-Brooks, Jason Sodergren, and JoAnn Grondon. A special thank you to all of you for helping take down the station today. Holiday Beach Migration Observatory (HBMO) is an organization devoted to monitoring migration at the Holiday Beach Conservation Area, Essex Co., Ontario, administered by the Essex Region Conservation Authority. In addition to a hawk-watch/passerine count that has been in operation since 1974, HBMO operates three banding stations, two for raptors (since 1987) and one for passerines and hummingbirds (since 1997). The Holiday Beach Conservation Area was designated an Important Bird Area by Conservation International in 2000. Lat: 42-01'54.1" Long: 083-02'41.6" For directions and information on our site, go to the HBMO website at: http://www.hbmo.org Allen Chartier amazilia1@comcast.net 1442 West River Park Drive Inkster, MI 48141 Website: http://www.amazilia.net Michigan HummerNet: http://www.amazilia.net/MIHummerNet/index.htm Allen Chartier <amazilia1@comcast.net>