Don't count your birds before the last net run

Today was a pretty spectacular day in many regards (it's important to remember there are many "types" of spectacular). In the most ordinary kind of spectacular day, we were able to operate a full day without getting rained on. This is a victory for a Fairbanks banding station in August. Prepared to settle for just this one thing, we were content with our steady but rather low number of birds throughout the day. The spectacular meter jumped up a notch to pretty-stoked spectacular with the capture of a Spotted Sandpiper in net 12! It's the first Spotted Sandpiper in banding station history! (Okay, now we've reached historical spectacular. And yes, there are more levels).

More than pleased, we all settled in to preparing for the end of the day. And this is where it went all wrong. I bet you've heard the phrase: don't count your chickens before they hatch. Turns out there's another birdy no-no: don't count your birds before the last net run. One of our fun moments of the day is guessing how many birds we've captured/banded, only we never do this until we're done. Today I thought I'd be ambitious and total our numbers and discuss guesses before heading out on our closing net run; this is something I thought would work out fine since activity slows throughout the morning and we weren't having a busy day. We even had the gall to joke and laugh that we could get slammed while closing. We really did think we were in the homestretch.

You've probably guessed it by now. We jinxed ourselves forwards, backwards, up, down, and every-which way.

 It happened like this: Net 1 was the first net encountered; an amused chuckle and call on the radio let us know someone wanted to change their guess for the day. Then I happened upon net 19 with a smattering of birds, oh and so did 18. Hmm. We briefly discussed the possibility of more bags. When we arrived at the 20s we called in for reinforcements with a desperate plea for bags. This was a pretty tough request since the water levels at the 20s were flirting with the lips of knee boots. Turns out that nets 3 and 5 were also full of birds, so everyone was busy. Together we waded through the 20s and were ready to venture into deeper waters for our last seven nets...

Now this is where I should back-up, I reckon things went off course way before I broke our new cardinal rule (pun intended). I happened to note the boisterous and numerous chickadees that chose the station as their afternoon hangout while on the second to last net run; I may have even chided 'you just wait until there's 50 chickadees in a mist net at close'. 

Things went spectacularly full circle when we arrived at 15 and 16 to find more birds including many chickadees. Tait and I were on our own; we were in the land of waders - bye,bye cuticles. It get's even more unbelievably spectacular. Nets 13 and 14 were full of chickadees. I'd like to say 11 and 12 welcomed us, but we found more chickadees. (I find it important to note here, I truly love chickadees.) 

The job isn't done once you've removed the birds; safely and quickly processing them is an essential next step. The effort to get to this point included many things, but of spectacular note were: falling in the gully, eating tasty papaya, swamping knee boots, eating an Alaska blueberry muffin, not caring that knee boots were swamped, drinking cold coffee, and sweating in the sun.

HY Brown Creeper

 Finishing the day required two people banding at once with one patient recorder and resulted in four more first-of-seasons! Our four new birds of the season were: Downy Woodpecker, Blackpoll Warbler, Boreal Chickadee, and a BROWN CREEPER!!! Very few things can bring a bander to a stop on busy day, but a Brown Creeper certainly did. We all briefly paused to admire and snap a few photos of this second ever station capture (the first was in 2015). Capturing this bird was pretty Captain-Ahab spectacular. The Brown Creeper is one of the few species elevated to 'white whale' status at the station. We were even able to share the excitement with an out-of-town visitor who kindly donated to the station!

After a day like today, all you can really be is spectacularly thankful. Thankful for job well done, incredibly great people, stories to tell and the amazing birds that bring us all together.