Date: 10/10/25 2:49 pm From: Alan Moss via groups.io <alanmoss1616...> Subject: [NEBirds] Chadron State Park Banding Week 7 (10/6-10/10) #CSPBanding
Hi Nebraska Birders,
I have just finished up my final day of banding, and it was representative of much of the season: feast or famine. On Monday, I opened late after the showers passed and didn't catch a single bird. This was followed by Tuesday, which was my busiest day of the season with 32 new birds banded. It was too windy to band on Wednesday, and today and yesterday were slowish. The big push on Tuesday was mostly Orange-crowned Warblers as usual, but I also had three first-of-season birds that day: Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Hermit Thrush, and American Goldfinch. The goldfinches have been around all season, of course, but don't normally approach the net area. The other two are later migrants that show that we are entering the homestretch of migration. My final bird of the season was a Field Sparrow, only the 9th ever caught at CSP.
Here are the totals for this week:
Black-capped Chickadee: 3 repeat, 1 return from a previous season Ruby-crowned Kinglet: 5 new Red-breasted Nuthatch: 1 new Northern House Wren: 1 new Hermit Thrush: 1 new American Goldfinch: 7 new Spotted Towhee: 4 new Dark-eyed Junco: 2 new (1 slate-colored, 1 oregon) Field Sparrow: 1 new Orange-crowned Warbler: 22 new
For the whole season, I caught a total of *228 new birds*, the 2nd most for a season at Chadron since 2018 (the 2023 season was only slightly higher at 237). This does not include the 36 times that I captured a bird that was already banded, but these largely consisted of catching many of the same chickadees over and over again. I did catch a couple of chickadees that were banded back in 2020: quite old for a small bird! But many were hatch-year birds that I banded for the first time early in the season.
I caught birds of a total of *33 different species*, including the hybrid Baltimore X Bullock's Oriole. Far and away, the most common species was Orange-crowned Warbler. They represented about 39% of the new birds I captured! This was the most of this species caught in a single season at Chadron since 2015. Below are the total numbers for each species captured from most to least.
