Banding at ACBO, 8 June

Monday’s banding got rescheduled for today.  Fortunately, the weather cooperated although it was another cold morning (~45 F).  We ran the field nets with some of the bog nets open in an effort to capture Veery for the telemetry work we are doing with that species.  More on that later.  Overall it was a rather slow morning with only 15 total captures of 12 species of which ten were new, four were recaps and 1 was unbanded.

The unbanded bird was a female ruby-throated hummingbird that got away from me before I could clip one of her rectrices in order to keep track of her throughout the summer.  I didn’t even get a chance to see if she had a brood patch, which would indicate she is nesting nearby.

The new birds were the usual cast of characters from the field.  Amazingly, all three of the Gray Catbirds were new.  All three were in the same net and included two males and a female.  Chances are good the female was mated to one of the males and the other male was being chased out of the territory by her mate when he discovered the interloper.

We got a surprise from one of the forest nets with a male Red-bellied Woodpecker. 

While this is a very common resident woodpecker at the station I’ve only caught a handful.  This is primarily due to the fact that they spend a lot of their time up high and miss my nets.  In the hand you can see the characteristic for which they are named.

This is rarely visible to birders as these birds, like most woodpeckers sit up tight against the trunk hiding their bellies.  This is one of those species that was undoubtedly named by an early naturalist that did all of his (yes, they were all men) bird “watching” with a shotgun.

This female American Goldfinch, unlike most of the females of other species we’ve been catching, showed no signs of nesting.

She has no brood patch nor the beginnings of one.  This is because goldfinch feed their babies exclusively on seeds.  Since most of the seed producing flowers won’t be ready for some time this species has to wait until mid-summer to begin breeding.  It isn’t uncommon to find female goldfinch sitting on eggs as late as September.  My first year in Michigan I found a female on a nest with eggs on the Central Michigan campus the first week of October.  That was late, even for a goldfinch, and the nest didn’t make it.

The recaps included a six-year-old female Northern Cardinal.  She was recaptured one net away from the net of her original capture.  Quite the homebody.  A Tufted Titmouse originally captured in ’06 as a hatching year bird was also one net a way from the net of original capture.  Finally, a very spiffy Blue-winged Warbler,

originally captured as a second year bird in ’08, also one net away from the net of original capture.  Do we notice a trend here?  In this photo the very yellow crown and, almost, orange forecrown is visible, which is indicative of an after second year male.

The big disappointment of the day was the recaptured Veery we were ready to put a transmitter on.  We are conducting a study of the movements of males and females during the breeding season and the movement of males in relation to their singing perches.  We currently have one bird, a female, outfitted with a transmitter.  (behold, the power of duct tape!)

However, we have five more to use and the breeding season isn’t waiting for us.  Rain and dumb luck has prevented us from getting the other units deployed.  Well, dumb luck was operating in full swing today.  The male we caught today had already been captured once earlier this spring with my spring term class.  Today we caught him by luring him into the net with a recording of a male singing.  It worked like a charm (as usual) and we were fitting him with a transmitter when he slipped out of my hands before I had it completely secured.  Fortunately, he dropped it about 50 feet from us and we were able to find it with the receiver.  Unfortunately, we now have to try to recapture him, along with four more birds, so we can begin collecting data before they are all done nesting.

Here’s the total catch:

Ruby-throated Hummingbird  1 N

Red-bellied Woodpecker  1 N

Blue Jay  1 N

Tufted Titmouse  1 R

House Wren  1 N

Veery 1 R

Gray Catbird  3 N
Blue-winged Warbler  1 R

Ovenbird  1 N

Song Sparrow  1 N

Northern Cardinal  1 N,  1 R

American Goldfinch  1 N