So, we had an errand to run, to drop off a DVD of a recent lecture given here at the Science Center to an employee of the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences in Plymouth. Timing is everything. Our arrival coincided with the popping into the banding nets of a rare songbird, as far as New England goes: a Kentucky Warbler.
Look at any range map for the species and it’ll tell you that this is a bird of the southeastern United States. They occasionally pop up here in spring, perhaps in attempts at range expansion. According to ebird, the last one seen on the South Shore was at Ferry Hill Thicket in Marshfield on May 11, 2012 (which, by the way, is somewhere you should visit this month if you’re into birdsong!).
The bird was banded by the team at Manomet, so that hopefully someday, if found again, alive or dead, we can learn a little bit more about Kentucky Warbler population movements. Is global climate change driving this bird northward? I guess we’ll see.