There is a rich history of bird banding at Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary that stretches back long before the opening of our present station in fall 2014.

The earliest known records are those of the Austin Ornithological Research Station, established by Dr. Oliver L. Austin Sr. and Jr. in 1929. The Austins and their intrepid crew banded just about any kind of bird they could get their hands on, songbirds included, for more than a quarter century—a considerable amount of time to continue monitoring the bird population in a single location. They were also among the first in the US to use Japanese mist nets, the same fine mesh, badminton-like nets used today.

Given how much the landscape of Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary has changed since 1929, it would be most intriguing to compare the bird species inhabiting today’s sanctuary to those frequenting the same property over eighty years ago. So, what ever happened to the old data?

The Austin data exists in an attic bookshelf packed with volumes upon volumes of banding history, quite difficult to analyze in its present state. As a bird bander myself, I couldn’t help but feel drawn to these neglected archives, and so began my endeavor to digitize the old records.

This is no easy feat. The earliest of these records are handwritten in what is sometimes an illegible scrawl. The birds’ names given are in scientific notation, and many of the Latin names have changed since 1930. Between regular misspellings and outdated nomenclature, it often takes more detective work than a Google search to figure out exactly what bird species had been banded.

After entering data ranging from 1930-1931, I noticed a changing dynamic in our regular avian residents over time. Both Vesper and Grasshopper Sparrows were caught regularly back then, but neither species has been captured on the property since fall 2014. Most of the residual open farmland that covered outer Cape Cod in the early 1930’s has since grown up into forest, dramatically decreasing suitable breeding habitat for these grassland sparrows.

Some of our most usual suspects today make no appearances in the early Austin records. Tufted Titmice and Northern Cardinals are notably absent from the 1930-1931 banding data, but they are regular captures today. Similarly, a 1930 journal entry describes the Austins’ first sighting of a Red-bellied Woodpecker on the property, then a rare southern visitor. Today, they are common in forested areas of the Cape and are often attracted to suet feeders.

The volumes of data from the Austin Ornithological Research Station range from 1930 to 1958, and digitizing all of the data is an enormous undertaking that will likely take several years and additional support to complete. Despite the project’s challenges, realizing this goal will provide unprecedented insight into the changing dynamics of the sanctuary’s bird communities over a near century.

 

Elora Grahame  started her banding career in 2012 with Northern Saw-whet Owls, then songbirds in 2013, and has worked as an assistant bander with master bander James Junda at Wellfleet Bay through spring and fall of 2016.  After fall migration,Elora changed gears and joined the sanctuary’s sea turtle rescue team.

One of the best things about the return of bird banding at Wellfleet Bay is the increasing amount of data.

Our master bander James Junda has completed his report for the fall 2016 season. It was his third fall migration here. Besides reporting total number of birds, species, number of species per 100 net hours (to compensate for the number of nets operating on any given day) and seasonal diversity, James also looks for trends.

For instance, he reports, Pine Warblers were unusually abundant last fall, ranking third among the most common captures compared to tenth in 2015 and 2014. Given that change, it’s probably fairly safe to speculate the birds had a pretty good breeding season.

Same might be said for American Goldfinches, which for the first time at the station was the most common species captured compared to previous fall migrations when they ranked third and sixth, respectively.

You might assume that with goldfinches being so common they’d turned up in the mist nets almost daily. Not necessarily so. In a great example of how new birds blow into town one day, while others seem to disappear overnight, goldfinches weren’t here in great numbers until mid to late October, when they were number 11 on the top 12 list. But just two weeks later—they shot up to number one. There was a similar pulse of Yellow-rumped Warblers. They suddenly popped up in second place on the top 12 list in the first half of October.

Although not nearly as numerous as yellow-rumps or goldfinches, other species saw increases over previous years. Palm Warblers seemed relatively plentiful—18 this year compared to just 5 and 3 banded the previous years. Twenty Black-throated Blue Warblers were captured; before, we’d only seen about 2 each year. And little kinglets were big: both ruby-crowned and golden-crowned more than doubled their numbers.

Finally, some species were fewer in number this fall. House Finches were down for a second consecutive fall; so were White-throated Sparrows and Field Sparrows.

Cause for worry? According to Mass Audubon’s State of the Birds Report, birds that breed in grasslands and shrubby habitats, such as the Field Sparrow and White-throated Sparrow, are on the decline because of habitat loss. But House Finches are still pretty ubiquitous. Still, it’s the steady accumulation of data that over time reveals significant trends. It’s exciting to be playing our part.

Summary of the Season: Just the Stats
Total Number of Species Banded   75
Total Number of Newly Banded Birds   1432

Top 10 Species of Fall 2016: American Goldfinch, Black-capped Chickadee, Pine Warbler, Gray Catbird, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Blue Jay, Northern Cardinal, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Eastern Bluebird, Song Sparrow, Blackpoll Warbler.