banding at camp bowie phase two

Hello! I am now finished with my MAPS training and I am now onto the regular banding season. I'm banding at Camp Bowie in Brownwood, Texas for the rest of the summer. Brownwood is a pretty small town but they have a Wal-mart and a Dairy Queen, so at least we have the necessities. We don't have internet at home so I have to drive about 5 miles away to a coffee shop to update my blog. I won't be able to update everyday, but I will try to get access when possible!

Today was our second day banding at Camp Bowie. We got there before dawn around 5am. It is kind of scary setting up everything in the dark, but at least we know we are safe within the gates of the National Guard training facility. I have never been on an army base before but the parts we are using are mostly just woodland. Today's banding took place in a mesquite woods which had burned last year. Now it has turned into kind of a marshy grassland with lots of dead trees. Banding was great here, although since it was mostly open, the nets were exposed to a lot of wind which is not ideal for catching birds. Today we got a total of 19 birds including two recaptures. The highlights were two Dickcissels and a Lark Sparrow. I had never gotten to see these birds in the hand before. Luckily they are super common in this area so we will probably be seeing them all summer long.


I still have a few more pictures from training I wanted to put up so below I have a Least Flycatcher of the genus of Very Confusing Empidonax Flycatchers. He can be distinguished by his white eyering. Otherwise most of these flycatchers look a lot alike. Below that, I have a picture of a female Black-and-white Warbler. Both are migrating through the area.

Least Flycatcher

Black-and-white Warbler

On our four hour drive from training to Brownwood, we saw quite a bit of wildlife including a coyote and a turkey that ran across the road, a jack rabbit, and a couple of Harris's Hawks as pictured above on a telephone wire. Another common sighting on telephone poles was the Crested Caracara. They are really beautiful birds! I didn't get a picture but I might still see some here in Brownwood. More on the road sightings were Turkey Vultures, Black Vultures, Greater Roadrunner, Scissor-tailed Flycatchers and once we saw a Great Horned Owl on another telephone pole.

Onto today's banding effort, one of my favorite captures was this male Yellow Warbler. We originally caught two but one accidentally escaped. They were singing and chasing each other around the area. Even though they are acting territorial, Yellow Warblers only migrate through Texas so they won't be around for long.

Yellow Warbler

Dickcissel

As I said before, we got two Dickcissels this morning. I love this bird! And of course they are very beautiful in the hand. I think we will be seeing quite a few of these because they were singing absolutely everywhere here.

Vermillion Flycatcher

We captured two Vermillion Flycatchers this morning. The above pictured is a second year male. The adult will be much more red all over the body. They are very very brilliant in color. The rest of the birds we got included a very messy Carolina Chickadee, Painted Buntings, Bewick's Wren, Common Yellowthroat, Eastern Bluebird, and three female Cowbirds. The Bluebird and the wren were both recaptures. Overall banding has been pretty successful, the bird have been super active and the weather hasn't been too bad yet.

Four more days of banding and getting up at 4:30am until I get my first day off since I've been here!

Confusing Flycatchers + B&W Warbler

Update on banding, two very similar looking birds but different species:



The top bird is a Eastern Wood Pewee and the bottom bird is a Willow Flycatcher ..... to the best of our knowledge. We thought they were the same bird at first but the Wood Pewee ended up being noticeably larger. You can also see that the Pewee has fainter wing bars and is more gray than greenish like the flycatcher. I still don't know if I'm fully convinced since there are so many empidonax flycatchers that look almost identical even in hand. At least we know for sure that both of these bird species have been heard around here. Sound is actually the best way to identify flycatchers and similar species.




Another couple of looks at the Willow Flycatcher, in case we ever decided to change our minds on the ID we made.

This is a very very young Common Yellowthroat. We are sure that this one had fledged within a day or two, meaning it's fresh from the nest. The picture turned out kind of blurry but you can see it has a stumpy tail (still growing his adult feathers) and a big mouth for showing mom and dad where to put the food. He also made very interesting calls that weren't typical sounds you would hear from an adult bird. They were more like trilling/shrieking noises that a begging bird might make. When we get young birds like this we always make sure to return them to where they were captured even though they are perfectly capable of flying, but just in case they get lost.

I think the bird-of-the-day is definitely this female Black and White Warbler. What a cute little bird! This was my first time seeing one banded. They aren't a very typical warbler out here, but I think that they might breed in the area or they are already flying through. It's hard to tell. Soon enough though, we should be getting lots more confusing fall warblers migrating through come September. Exciting!



Another shot of those lovely black and white stripes. The male doesn't differ much from the female but has more striping on the face.

Total Birds Banded: American Goldfinch (3), Common Yellowthroat, Song Sparrow, Eastern Wood Pewee, Willow Flycatcher, Gray Catbird, Black & White Warbler

Birdy art: American White Pelican

brief banding update + brown thrasher + AOU

Hi all, surprisingly the house wrens were gone from the banding station this week after the boom we had last time. In their place, we had several juvenile catbirds and a few late breeding birds. A pair of goldfinches showed signs that they were in the early stages of nesting. The female had a full belly, likely containing an egg. Another female Common Yellowthroat also showed signs that she had recently laid eggs. In general, August is late in the breeding season for birds, but it is also fairly common for specific birds like goldfinches.

The bird of the day was this juvenile Brown Thrasher. It was my first time seeing one up close.

Even though they are called Brown Thrashers, their feathers actually more reddish-brown as you can see.

This week I hope to update you with some western birds since I will be traveling to Portland, Oregon for the American Ornithologists Union meeting. I will be presenting some of my data that I've collected at Biocore Prairie with a poster I made and doing a little birding at Washington Park. Hopefully I will see some new birds but I will only be there for a few days.

Birds banded this week: Gray Catbird (4), American Goldfinch (2), Common Yellowthroat, Brown Thrasher, Song Sparrow

Birdy art: Stellar's Jay (a western bird)

wren fest & heavy molting

This past Saturday was a great day for banding. As soon as we started putting up nets, we could tell that we would be catching a lot of wrens, and we did! 11 total House Wrens were banded in 4 hours. They were really active in the area and had taken over all three nest boxes near the banding station.


Here's one of the 11. One of the wrens had even just laid eggs recently, a little late in the season but these guys seem to be busier than ever.

I'm always excited to see Cedar Waxwings near the nets. They are such neat birds! A bit disappointing though because as you can see, this one does not have waxy wings, just like the other two we caught this summer.

Here's a Common Yellowthroat with some missing tail feathers. Many birds molt before after the breeding season, especially before they get ready to migrate across a long distance or if they have different summer/winter plumages. If you look at where the tail feathers once were, you can see two tiny shoots. These are called pinfeathers and will eventually grow into full feathers. Feathers are pretty cool and much more complicated than mammal hairs. People are still trying to figure out how birds evolved feathers. One theory is that they are modified reptile-like scales. Amazing what millions of years can do to a body plan adapted for flight.

Speaking of molts, here is a Black-capped Chickadee who looks terribly disheveled, but is actually going through a heavy molt. He (or she?) had pinfeathers sticking out pretty much all over. Of course it is important that birds shed feathers in a very particular order, so that they are still able to fly.

Another look, Black-capped Chickadee from the back. Chickadees tend to be little fighters and like to bite a lot. This one actually wasn't so bad (to me anyway, Jerry, who took the chickadee out of the net had a different story!)

Here's a young female Yellow Warbler. It's nice to catch up with a warbler in the middle of summer, since most of them only pass through in the spring and fall. Yellow Warblers and Common Yellowthroats are the only warblers that breed right here at Biocore Prairie to my knowledge.

Another view from the back. It was definitely a day for small birds. Apparently this is tricky for some of the banders here but I don't mind. Well, that is, they are definitely a hassle to get out of the nets but I don't mind if I am just banding them!

Here is a really short video of a Cedar Waxwing being released... (listen for House wren song in the background)

and a quick House wren release..

Bird Banded: House Wren (11), Common Yellowthroat (2), American Goldfinch, Grey Catbird, Song Sparrow, Black-capped Chickadee, Yellow Warbler, Cedar Waxwing

Birdy Art: Northern Cardinal