One interesting aspect of this work is that “lulls” of activity seem to be broken by periods of higher activity. To wit, I had just about convinced myself that there would be nothing noteworthy showing up by the windows of the NRC for several weeks, now that we’re well into June and all the migrants seem to have (should have) passed through or are busy nesting. I certainly did not expect the Yellow-billed Cuckoo and Black-and-white Warbler I found this morning:
The cuckoo might just be a late migrant. They’ve really only been around for the past 3 or 4 weeks as it is. But the Black-and-white has me intrigued. These birds come back and begin nesting in late March. Could this individual (a 2nd year bird) already have been involved in post-breeding dispersal? Was it on its way back south? Was it in poor condition overwinter, such that it was just getting back to its breeding grounds this late?
Bird-Window Collisions at OK State 