Powdermill Bird Banding
Fall 2004
| STATISTICS |
8/24 |
8/25 |
8/26 |
8/27 |
8/28 |
8/29 |
Season
Totals |
| Daily
Banding Total |
60 |
77 |
41 |
72 |
75 |
56 |
841 |
| Number
of Species |
18 |
21 |
15 |
23 |
25 |
18 |
56 |
| Number
Net-Trap Hours |
325 |
235 |
105 |
310 |
260 |
260 |
4550 |
| No.
Birds/100 Net-Trap Hours |
18.5 |
32.8 |
39.0 |
23.2 |
28.8 |
21.5 |
18.5 |
| No.
Recaptures |
16 |
4 |
1 |
9 |
10 |
13 |
139 |
< CLICK
HERE for List of This Week's Totals by Species>
< CLICK
HERE for Season Species List and Totals
>
-
Both species total and diversity
went up from last week with 381 birds of 41 species being banded this week.
Ruby-throated Hummingbirds were again the top species with 69 banded.
Four species were added to our season list: Blue-headed Vireo, Nashville
Warbler, Chipping Sparrow, and Grasshopper Sparrow.
Randi Gerrish, David Liebmann, Cokie Lindsay, Annie Lindsay, Felicity Newell,
and Trish Miller all helped
with banding this week. We welcomed back our British friend and ringing
colleague, and new Powdermill
research associate, David Norman, on August
27th. We also thank Debbie and Al Sherkow,
visiting
banders from Wisconsin, for their help on August
28th during their stopover visit at Powdermill.
-
We added two more Blackburnian Warblers
to our fall totals this week. This hatch year female pictured below
was banded on August 26th.
Comparing with our female posted on the website at the beginning of the
month (see past pictorial highlights),
this bird was even duller. With both species frequenting similar
habitats in migration, the dullest fall female Blackburnians, with their
whitish eyeline and wingbars and their white to pale buff underparts, actually
can be confused with fall Cerulean Warblers. Blackburnian Warblers
have a proportionately longer tail and more defined head pattern (darker
cheek patch). If seen well enough, the immature female Blackburnian
shows pale lines down the sides of the back and blurry black streaks across
the back that Cerulean Warbler's lack.
-
On Friday,
August 27th, we added one of our four new
species for the fall. This hatching year female Nashville Warbler
(photo below) had little contrast between the gray hindneck and an equally
grayish back, contrasting with a fairly bright greenish yellow rump, suggesting
the possibility of its being an individual from the more westerly race,
Vermivora ruficapilla ridgwayi.
-
Also on Friday, we banded this second
year (SY) male Rose-breasted Grosbeak. Specifically, we posted this
bird to show the molt limit created by his yet to be prebasically molted
(retained juvenal) middle secondaries. HY/SY males retain the majority
of their juvenal flight feathers, like most other passerines, until their
2nd prebasic (fall) definitive molt. This bird, with a molt score
of 72 out of a possible 90 (based on scores from 0-5 of primaries and secondaries
where 0 = old unmolted feather and 5 = molted and fully grown feather),
has nearly completed its definitive prebasic molt and has only its last
three juvenal flight feathers (secondaries 4-6) to replace. If these
had already been dropped when we caught the bird, there would have been
no way to distinguish this bird as being an SY or an ASY, and it would
have to be recorded simply as an AHY.
-
Finally, we end this week's short
but sweet update with photo highlights from one of our other new species
for the fall season. A hatching year Grasshopper Sparrow was banded
on Saturday, August 28th. This
was the 22nd year we have ever caught a GRSP and only the 14th fall season
with one on record, with all of the captures only ever being one or two
birds. In the earlier years the totals were a little higher because
habitat in the immediate banding area was more open, but even then, we
have never banded in the double digits of GRSP. Needless to say,
this one little bird made our day--our week for that matter!
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Last Updated on 09/04/04
By Adrienne J. Leppold