Illinois Raptor Center Bird Banding Station

Travis is back from Sun Foundation’s Art and Science in the Woods, and 215 campers, ages 5-15 (and dozens more adult and junior TA’s and other staff) were able to join for banding this week!

After Monday’s report (29 birds, 16 species), Tuesday through Friday mornings of operating 8 nets each day from 700-1130 brought 37 birds from 18 species.

Here are the totals for the week:

67 birds of 22 species

10 Northern Cardinal
7 Common Yellowthroat
6 Gray Catbird
6 Downy Woodpecker
5 Yellow-breasted Chat
4 Indigo Bunting
4 Field Sparrow
4 Brown-headed Cowbird
3 Eastern Phoebe
2 Baltimore Oriole
2 Brown Thrasher
2 Black-capped Chickadee
2 White-breasted Nuthatch
2 American Robin
1 Scarlet Tanager
1 Chipping Sparrow
1 Rose-breasted Grosbeak
1 Wood Thrush
1 Eastern Wood Pewee
1 Tufted Titmouse
1 Northern House Wren
1 Ruby-throated Hummingbird

This is one fewer bird, but one more species than last year. Two birds were recaptures. A Brown-headed Cowbird we originally banded in 2023 and an Indigo Bunting we originally banded in 2024.

Travis is a visiting instructor at the Sun Foundation’s Art and Science in the Woods camp this week, banding birds with campers in the morning each day this week.

Today we operated 8 nets from 730-1130

We captured 29 birds from 16 species

4 Northern Cardinal
3 Yellow-breasted Chat
3 Common Yellowthroat
3 Field Sparrow
3 Downy Woodpecker
2 Eastern Phoebe
2 Black-capped Chickadee
1 Baltimore Oriole
1 Rose-breasted Grosbeak
1 Wood Thrush
1 Brown Thrasher
1 White-breasted Nuthatch
1 Indigo Bunting
1 Northern House Wren
1 Gray Catbird
1 Brown-headed Cowbird

We had an extremely strange occurrence today.

In the first round of net checks, we found an American Toad in a net.

Now, the bottom of the nets sometimes touch the ground, so you could imagine a toad getting caught there.

This toad was 5 feet off the ground in the net.

Toads can’t jump.

So…..how?

We suspect that a raptor, such as a Barred Owl or Red-shouldered Hawk, grabbed the toad and, in an attempt to avoid the net, or upon bouncing out of the net, dropped the toad and it landed there.