This weekend at the Purple Martin banding session this very rare leucistic Purple Martin was found in a nest compartment that had featherless nestlings in it last week. Peter said he has never seen an leucistic Purple Martin in this colony in all the years he has been maintaining it. Click next to see another photo of this rare bird.
 
This weekend fewer than 30 nestlings were banded. Many nest compartments were empty, the birds having fledged, and a couple of birds were induced to fledge when the nest compartments were opened. One nest compartment that had 11 eggs (from two females) in it last weekend had a few recently hatched nestlings in it this weekend. It is uncommon for eggs to hatch this late in the season. These nestlings have only one month to mature and get ready to fly to Brazil.
 
In total around 280 nestlings were banded this year, which is 100 fewer than last year. Special thanks to Peter Huszcz for making his colony and the banding event accessible to the public. Peter was the recipient of the Elizabeth Le Geyt award this year in recognition of his decade of work maintaing this Purple Martin colony and for promoting an appreciation for wild birds by holding these public banding sessions. I have been attending these banding sessions for three years now and they are among my favorite events of the year.