Monthly Banding Summary, June-July 2025

November 18, 2025

This summary was compiled by Point Blue’s Palomarin banding apprentices Rosa Ponce Vargas and June Yost, with help from Larissa Babicz, Banding Supervisor.

Exciting Captures and Observations:

June and July were filled to the brim with unusual captures at the Palomarin Field Station and their other Marin County banding sites (called “offsites”). The banders started off strong with a young male Rose-breasted Grosbeak that was captured on June 9th at our Redwood Creek banding station in Golden Gate Recreation Area near Muir Beach, CA. They determined that it was a “Second Year”, i.e., it had that hatched the previous summer. These gorgeous visitors are rare vagrants but seen fairly regularly in the Point Reyes area — they normally occur east of the Rocky Mountains.

 

Three days later on June 12th, the banders at the Palomarin Field Station caught two juvenile Northern Saw-whet Owls. These adorable raptors are not frequently caught by our banders. In fact, we hadn’t caught one in over a decade before one landed in our nets at another site last year.

 

And it doesn’t stop there! This Olive-sided Flycatcher was caught on June 19th, a perfect surprise to celebrate one of the apprentices’ birthday. As their name suggests, you can often find these birds catching flies mid-air, but because they are often high up in the trees, they usually avoid our nets. They are relatively common breeders here but rarely get caught by our banders.

 

A common theme this summer was that good things come to the banders in pairs, and this next species was no exception. On July 13th, banders at Palomarin captured a juvenile female Belted Kingfisher, a “most wanted bird” for more than one veteran bander at the field station. Three days later, a second Belted Kingfisher—this time a juvenile male—was captured at Pine Gulch, another banding “off-site” at the Bolinas Lagoon Preserve. Normally flying too high to be captured in our nets and preferring to stay within the creek boundaries, it was a huge surprise and great pleasure for the banders to catch two of only four Belted Kingfishers banded by Palomarin in the last 10 years.

 

Although the banders enjoyed these exciting captures, they were kept busy by the more typical birds, such as Song Sparrows, Swainson’s Thrushes, Wrentits, Wilson’s Warblers, and Allen’s and Anna’s Hummingbirds. As the breeding season progressed, fledglings became more numerous until almost every bird captured was a young bird. One particularly young fledgling caused a good deal of head-scratching before the banders identified it as a Hermit Warbler!

 

Let’s Do the Numbers:

In 56 days (5561.90 net hours) of mist-netting at Palomarin in June-July, we captured 384 new birds and recaptured 153 previously banded birds. A total of 537 birds of 35 species were caught. Approximately 10 birds were caught per banding day.

At our other West Marin banding sites, we captured 532 new birds and recaptured 367 previously banded birds. A total of 899 birds of 38 species were caught over 28 banding days in June-July (1521.89 net hours), an average of approximately 32 birds per day.

The highest capture rates at Palomarin and our other West Marin banding sites were on July 23 at Palomarin with 34 birds, and June 23 at Pine Gulch (Bolinas Lagoon Preserve), with 52 birds.

At Palomarin, the following species were caught in the highest numbers: Wilson’s Warbler (91), Swainson’s Thrush (59), Wrentit (58), Allen’s Hummingbird (48), and Bewick’s Wren (36).

Across all off-sites, the highest numbers of captures by species were: Song Sparrow (222), Swainson’s Thrush (213), Wilson’s Warbler (151), Bewick’s Wren (32), and Common Yellowthroat (31).

About these Summaries:

Point Blue apprentices and staff at our Palomarin Field Station share these blog posts in an effort to further engage the public in our science. We are grateful to our partners at the Point Reyes National Seashore and Marin County Parks, and to our surrounding Bolinas and West Marin County community and our funders for their support of our work.

Early-career bird banders are part of a rigorous training program at Point Blue’s Palomarin Field Station, where they learn to capture birds safely using mist nets and record data on each bird caught. The information collected allows us to better understand how populations of birds are doing and in turn gives us insight into the health of the systems we research. Learn more about our seasonal apprenticeships by visiting the careers page on our website .

All banding, marking, and sampling is being conducted under a federally authorized Bird Banding Permit issued by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Bird Banding Laboratory.
Our Palomarin Field Station is open to the public. Consider visiting us! Learn how on our contact & visit us web page.