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Weymouth Woods Banding / Bicknell's Thrush



Hello All,

We are into our first year of fall migration banding at Weymouth Woods -
Sandhills Nature Preserve and it has been a little slow. Our first
morning was 9/7.  Susan Campbell, Scott Hartley and myself have been
running 10 nets along the Pine Island Trail at WEWO. We have had
assistance from several volunteers including Amanda Finch and Jill
Froening.

We have banded the following species thus far:    (17 birds total)
Common Crackle
Tufted Titmouse
Carolina Wren
American Redstart
Ovenbird
Hooded Warbler
Black-Throated Blue Warbler
Veery
Swainson's Thrush
Bicknell's Thrush

The last 5 were banded yesterday (9/27), giving us an excellent
opportunity to compare and contrast these 3 thrushes. Using the Pyle
guide all indicators (overall size, lower mandible color, leg color,
contrast of rect color with back color) all pointed us to Bicknell's.
These criteria are easier to distinguish in the hand than through
binoculars, but not a lot easier.

We also were banding on Tuesday morning, 9/11/01 and look back at the
quiet, peacefulness of that morning in a bottomland forest in the
Sandhills of NC  in stark contrast to how different things were in NYC,
Washington and PA and the rest of the country. Almost fittingly we
caught no birds that morning.

Chris Helms
Weymouth Woods - Sandhills Nature Preserve
Southern Pines, NC