We ended up banding 1626 new birds and had 278 recaptures of 72 species  A total of  1959 birds were netted  (this includes birds released unbanded).  Our capture rate was 55.9 birds per 100 net-hours.  It was a pretty average fall up until October 27.  The last six mornings of banding, we banded 497 of those new birds, nearly a third of the season total. For 3 of the days, only half the nets were open!  Capture rate for this period was 164.5 
birds per 100 net hours. Here are previous fall averages for comparison:
 

On October 11, RRBO reached a milestone:  the 25,000th new bird banded, a White-throated Sparrow. Read about the relevance of that milestone in the University press release.

As far as other numbers, most notable was the large movement of goldfinches commencing on October 27.  We ended up banding 247, shattering our previous fall total of 166, and over 200 of them were in the last six days. The other species that made up a large part of the latter part of the season was American Robin.  We bested our former record of 351 by several birds.

The top ten bird species banded (new captures only) were:

American Robin -- 353 (new record)
American Goldfinch -- 247 (new record)
Gray Catbird -- 155
White-throated Sparrow -- 113
Song Sparrow -- 57
Swainson's Thrush -- 50
Magnolia Warbler -- 37
Cedar Waxwing -- 36
Yellow-rumped Warbler -- 35
White-crowned Sparrow -- 32

You can look at how this compares to our list of most commonly banded species since 1992.

Notable species included Blue-winged and Golden-winged Warblers (Golden at bottom), Scarlet Tanager, Sharp-shinned Hawk, and a possible Western Wood-Pewee.

Numbers and trends
The best way to examine trends in banding data is to look at the number of birds banded standardized to reflect the amount of effort: birds per 100 net hours (/100 NH). I examined 20 species in which the fall mean is at least 20 birds per year.  Eleven had decreases /100NH, and nine had increases. 

For a few of those species, the decreases probably represent actual  trends. 
 

We talked about the long-term decline in Gray Catbirds in both 2003 and 2004.  Again, the number of catbirds banded was about 11% lower than the previous mean, but as you can see from the graphic, the trend is slowly moving up again.

Swainson's Thrushes and Hermit Thrushes both had decreased numbers this year.  The trends in these two species are somewhat similar, with a large peak in 1998, followed by a "correction." Because Hermit Thrushes are late migrants, sometimes their capture numbers don't represent actual numbers -- we have much more down time late in the season due to frost, leaves, and cold weather.  This probably accounts for the erratic ups-and-downs shown in the graph.

A final interesting species is House Wren, which had an increase of 22%. This may turn out to be some natural long-term cycle.

For totals of all species, their previous fall means, and the total since 1992, click here.