Banding at CNC, Thursday, 10 June

At least there wasn’t any rain today.  We were able to open at dawn and stay open until noon, despite increasing windiness throughout the morning.  It was not a very busy day which indicates to me that many of the females are sitting on nests and males are busy feeding the mom’s and those babies already hatched.

We had a total of 28 individuals captured of ten species, of which 20 were new birds, six were recaptures and two were unbanded.  The unbanded birds were a Wood Thrush and a Tufted Titmouse that got away before we could get them out of the net.  It was a notable day in that we only had one Gray Catbird!  I didn't even think that was possible.  As a consolation though, five feet from the end of net 1 we found a catbird nest with four babies in it.  One look and you can tell how crowded that place is going to be in about two weeks.

We caught a female American Redstart.

This is exciting because she was exhibiting a brood patch meaning she is sitting on a nest.  This is only the fourth redstart we’ve captured during this study and the first confirmation at this site of a redstart in breeding condition.  There is nothing unusual about having a redstart here as they are a very common breeding bird locally.  We just haven’t had many residing at this site and, up until now, none that we could confirm as breeding.  This photo nicely shows the rictal bristles around the bill that they use to assist in flycatching.  

We also caught a Least Flycatcher.

This is only the third Least Flycatcher we’ve caught during this study.  One the first year in ’04, one earlier this spring and today.  Again, a fairly common breeding bird locally, just not very common here.  This was a male in breeding condition.  However, that only provides us with a probable breeder designation.  It takes a female in breeding condition to elevate the species to confirmed status!

We had several birds show up as pairs in the nets together or on consecutive net runs.  A pair of cardinals including a female recapture who was originally banded last year.  A pair of Song Sparrows whose recaptured male was originally banded in ‘08.  A pair of Common Yellowthroats, and a pair of Yellow Warblers.  Here's the female:

and here's the male:

But the day’s champs were a pair of Black-capped Chickadees along with three of their fledglings, which were the first babies captured this summer.  They were all in the same net, working themselves into a tizzy until we finally got them out.  And the female was a recapture, originally banded in ’07 and caught in the same net then as today.  She and the father had already begun their pre-basic molt which will replace all of their body and flight feathers.  You can see the emerging primaries (the 3rd, 4th, and 5th feather after the finger) in her wing in this photo.

I'd like to extend a big thanks to Audrey Diadiun for submitting several of her photos taken at CNC today and back in May.  It saves me time, not having to photograph the birds myself, plus I stink at it.  Her's are much nicer to look at!

Here’s the catch:

Least Flycatcher  1 N,

Black-capped Chickadee  8 N,  1 R

Tufted Titmouse  1 N,  1 R,  1 U

Wood Thrush  1 N,  1 U

Gray Catbird  1 R

Yellow Warbler  2 N

American Redstart  1 N

Common Yellowthroat  2 N

Song Sparrow  3 N,  2 R

Northern Cardinal  1 N,  1 R

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

Banding at ACBO, 1 June

Tuesday, 1 June, was the official start of the field season at the Vestaburg Station of the ACBO.  We ran the ten nets around the bog with hopes that we would get the first Veery volunteers for our breeding season telemetry project study.  We heard Veery but none ventured in to the nets.  Neither did much else for that matter.

We had a total of nine individuals of six species of which seven were new and two were recaps.

The most exciting bird was the Yellow-bellied Flycatcher.

This is a species I don’t catch very often at all and nests much further north than here (UP north).  On the property we have nesting Acadian Flycatcher which are sometimes confused with Yellow-bellied.  However, while Acadians have a yellowish wash to the underparts the Yellow-bellied is unmistakably “lemony”.  As my mentor from Texas said, “if you have to imagine that it is yellow enough to be a Yellow-bellied, then it isn’t.  When you have a Yellow-bellied you will know it.”  Besides that, they are just cuter than an Acadian!

One of the Hairy Woodpeckers was our first Hatching Year bird for the year.  You’ll notice in the photos below the adult male has the characteristic red markings at the back of the crown that indicate his sex. 

However, the HY bird has red on the head, but on the mid-crown not the back.

This is a female and she is showing the red head feathers all young Hairy’s (and Downy’s) exhibit before their first pre-basic molt.  By fall this bird will have a completely dark head like an adult female.

The American Robin and Brown-headed Cowbird recaptures were both birds banded last summer.

Here are the totals:

Hairy Woodpecker  2 N

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher  1 N

Wood Thrush  2 N

American Robin  1 N,  1 R

Gray Catbird  1 N

Brown-headed Cowbird  1 R

The Annual Bandout at Port Huron State Game Area, 21-23 May

On Friday, Saturday and Sunday of 21-23 May I made my annual pilgrimage to the Port Huron State Game Area for the annual Spring Bandout hosted by the Michigan Bird Banders Association.  Two other banders, Dan Miller and Alan Chartier and myself run five or six nets for the three days and band everything we catch.  We also show off the birds to the public which usually show up in big numbers.  This year I had three students come along to help out and rack up some brownie points. J

The weather was amazingly cooperative.  We arrived Friday, leaving heavy rain in Alma, to find sunny conditions for setting up our nets and for running them a few hours before dark.  It rained overnight and right up until dawn Saturday morning when it stopped as we opened and remained dry for the rest of the day.  Sunday dawned sunny for the last few hours of banding before we packed up and headed home.

We had six nets set up around the wooded creek and fencerows along the Black River.  And despite our best efforts we had the lowest numbers seen in recent years.  We had a total of 37 captures of 15 species of which 33 were new and four were recaptures.  Except for the Gray-cheeked Thrush none of the other birds we caught could be definitively considered passage migrants.  Everything else is known to have nested in the game area.

All of the recaptures were birds banded at last year’s Bandout.  The Yellow Warbler was banded by Dan and the rest were banded by me.

Despite the crummy turn out of birds and people we still had a good time and got to see some good birds.

Here’s the tally:

Eastern Phoebe  1 N

Acadian Flycatcher  1 N

Black-capped Chickadee  1 N,  1 R

Tufted Titmouse  1 N

Gray-cheeked Thrush  1 N

Gray Catbird  6 N

Yellow Warbler  2 N,  1 R

American Redstart  7 N

Mourning Warbler  3 N,  1 R

Canada Warbler  1 N

Common Yellowthroat  1 N,  1 R

Northern Cardinal  1 N

Rose-breasted Grosbeak  1 N

Indigo Bunting  4 N

American Goldfinch  2 N

Banding at Forest Hill, 20 May

On Thursday 20 May my class and I went to Forest Hill Nature Area, the school district’s environmental interpretive center.  We were doing a banding demo for several classes of fourth graders from nearby Ithaca.  We had six nets positioned around the wetland that dominates the property.  As the main purpose of the morning was to perform show-and-tell with the birds for the classes and since I only do demos there every other year or so I don’t generally band most of the birds I capture there.  So, the list of captures is largely unbanded individuals.

We had a very good morning (sunny, warm, no wind) and got to show the students a nice variety of the typical resident birds commonly found in the farm fields and wet meadows that make up our area.  There were 40 captures of 18 species of which 14 were new and 26 were unbanded.

The biggest surprise of the morning was a White-crowned Sparrow.  Generally, these are long gone by early May much less mid-month.  A female Eastern Bluebird was fun simply because I never catch them although they are quite common.  The Warbling Vireo is also a common nester at Forest Hill but is another one I don’t catch very often.

My students had a good time showing off their new found skills to a rapt audience.  And the fourth graders were, no doubt, just glad to be out of the classroom for the day!

Here’s the list:

Willow Flycatcher  2 N

Warbling Vireo  1 U

House Wren  2 U

Eastern Bluebird  1 U

Swainson’s Thrush  1 N

American Robin  1 N

Gray Catbird 2 U

Blue-winged Warbler 1 U

Yellow Warbler  3 U

Magnolia Warbler  2 U

Mourning Warbler  1 N

Common Yellowthroat  5 N,  2 U

Swamp Sparrow  1 U

Song Sparrow  2 U

White-crowned Sparrow  1 U

Red-winged Blackbird  1 N,  2 U

American Goldfinch  3 U

House Sparrow  3 N,  2 U

Banding at ACBO 17-19 May

During the week of 17–19 May my class and I spent our time banding at the Alma College Bird Observatory in Vestaburg.  Monday we ran the ten nets around the bog. Tuesday we ran the ten nets out in the field but had to close early on account of rain.  Wednesday we ran the bog nets and the field nets simultaneously.  The weather was so-so with morning temps in the high forties and finishing in the low sixties, but the wind was consistently moderate which is never a good thing.

For the three days we had a total of 58 captures of 23 species of which 40 were new, 13 were recaps and five were unbanded.  The species list was still dominated by year round residents and returning summer residents.  Our only definite passage migrants were two Swainson’s Thrush, a Gray-cheeked Thrush and two Magnolia Warblers.

The unbanded birds were mostly the three female Ruby-throated Hummingbirds.  While I’m not licensed to band them, I do clip a corner of one of their rectrices (tail feathers) so I can identify them if they are captured again throughout the summer.  The other two unbanded birds were a Wood Thrush and an Indigo Bunting that escaped my students’ best efforts to extract them from the net.

A large percentage of the birds caught exhibited breeding condition.  So, many females were sporting brood patches indicating they were laying, incubating or keeping naked young warm.  These included the Blue Jay, Brown Creeper, Black-capped Chickadee, Wood Thrush, American Robin, Northern Cardinal, and Rose-breasted Grosbeak.

Among the many recaptures were a few birds of notable age.  These included a three year old Black-capped Chickadee, an at-least-five year old Veery, and at-least-six year old Black-capped Chickadee, a six year old Brown Creeper.  And the winner was a nine year old Veery!  That’s sixteen trips across the Gulf of Mexico on his way to the Amazonian rain forest and back each year!

Finally, the nesting Eastern Phoebe’s babies were about a week away from fledging.  So, we took advantage of this to band the youngsters.  They were very fuzzy-headed and sleepy as we banded and measured them.  Mom waited patiently until we returned them and then continued the chore of bringing them a steady supply of bugs.  For those of you who don’t already know, songbirds have a very poor sense of smell.  Handling baby birds will NOT cause the parents to abandon them.  Don’t hesitate to return naked or unflighted youngsters to a known nest.  Young birds on the ground that can fly should be left alone as mom and dad are watching out for them and feeding them there.

Here the catch:

Ruby-throated Hummingbird  3 U

Hairy Woodpecker  2 N

Eastern Phoebe  2 L

Black-capped Chickadee  4 R

Brown Creeper 1 N, 1 R

White-breasted Nuthatch  1 N

House Wren  2 N

Veery  2 N,  3 R

Swainson’s Thrush  2 N

Gray-cheeked Thrush  1 N

Wood Thrush  4 N,  2 R,  1 U

American Robin 1 N,  1 R

Gray Catbird  5 N,  2 R

Brown Thrasher  1 N

Nashville Warbler  1 N

Magnolia Warbler  2 N

Ovenbird  1 N

Northern Waterthrush  1 N

American Redstart  3 N

Field Sparrow  3 N

Northern Cardinal  2 N

Rose-breasted Grosbeak  1 N

Indigo Bunting  3 N,  1 U

Banding at Chippewa Nature Center

Saturday, 15 May was the first day of banding at Chippewa Nature Center.  This was our migration banding day but we were also beginning our breeding season study as well.  Consequently, we caught several returning breeding birds along with some transient travelers.

We had a total of 37 individuals of 23 species of which 26 were new birds and 11 were recaptures.  We ran the usual ten nets from dawn until noon.  It was a remarkable day for one hit wonders.  Of the 37 birds captured seventeen were the only representative of their species!  Among the migrants were a couple of my favorites, including a beautiful male Magnolia Warbler,

a male Nashville Warbler,

and an equally pretty, if more subtle Lincoln's Sparrow.

Among the resident birds were several Rose-breasted Grosbeaks.  Including this pair, caught in the same net together.

Also, this female Baltimore Oriole.

A couple of birds captured that breed in the area but haven't been banded at this site before were a Swamp Sparrow,

and this very huffy Philadelphia Vireo.

Finally, the most unusual bird of the day also turned out to be one of the most those commonly banded at this site.  This Gray Catbird was a recapture (as were all six of the catbirds caught that day) originally banded on 7/5/07 as an ASY female.  That means she was born in '05 or earlier.  A respectable age for any songbird.  However, her eye color is all wrong.

While gray would be in keeping with her name, a normal catbird has a deep walnut-brown eye.  Interestingly, I had no note on the original capture that indicated she had a gray eye at that time.  Apparently, this is something that she's developed since then.  I have no other record of her recapture since '07.

Here is the final tally:

Least Flycatcher  1 N
Philadelphia Vireo  1 N
Black-capped Chickadee  1 N
House Wren  1 N
Swainson's Thrush  1 N
American Robin  1 N
Gray Catbird  6 R
Blue-winged Warbler  1 N
Nashville Warbler  1 N
Yellow Warbler  4 N
Magnolia Warbler  1 N
Ovenbird  1 R
Common Yellowthroat  1 N,  1 R
Lincoln's Sparrow  1 N
Swamp Sparrow  1 N
Song Sparrow  1 N,  1 R
Northern Cardinal  1 N
Rose-breasted Grosbeak  3 N,  2 R
Indigo Bunting  1 N
Red-winged Blackbird  1 N
Brown-headed Cowbird  1 N
Baltimore Oriole  1 N
American Goldfinch  1 N

Our next banding day is Thursday 3 June.  Hope to see you out there.