Happy 25th Bird-Day!!!
“Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is.
The most important product of his effort is his own personality.”
~ Erich Fromm
Waking up this morning, I was not really ready to celebrate my 25th birthday. However, once we caught our first bird of the day, I was more than ready to! While heading to the kitchen, my radio went off and I got a message of a “big bird” in one of the nets closest to the banding lab. I agreed to help out and walked up to the net lane where I found Marika extracting a LARGE bird. As I walked further, the bird got closer and out of the shadows appeared a large bird with a flame crest…a Pileated Woodpecker. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Luckily for me, Marika had to go on a net run, so I was able to help her out for a few minutes before the bird was passed to me, in essence making me the primary bander. It so far has been the banding highlight of the season, and I believe the photos below will show why. Some photos (1-4) come courtesy of visitor Mark Forney. Enjoy! (more…)
Of Bars and Rbnus (05/07/2006)
Today I had yet another fairly slow, but good day of banding at the Palomarin Field Station. Keeping all of our nets open for the 6 hrs of operation (620-1220) we were able to total the maximum net hours of 120, yet, despite having this, only 7 birds were caught on the day. But, one really can’t complain when you catch birds like the ones we did, the first individuals of the season for two rarely caught species! (more…)
Uppers (05/04/2006)
Greetings,
I banded up on Grid 4 (Uppers) today at the Palomarin Field Station and had a fairly smooth day with a fair amount of birds (12). All in all we caught a total of 7 species, 3 of which were caught on the last net run of the day. Normally that wouldn’t have been so bad, but since I forgot to pack a large enough lunch, the last thing I wanted to deal with was more birds, particularly a stressy Spotted Towhee that needed to have its color bands replaced. All in the name of good science I guess. (more…)
Lagunitas Creek (05/01/2006): A Day of Jays
With the start of the new field season today, so started our increased efforts in mist-netting birds; not only at the Palomarin Field Station (6 days a week vs. 3 of last season) but also banding efforts at 2 new off-sites, increasing our total of non-Palo sites to 5. The two new offsites include Redwood Creek near Muir Woods, and Lagunitas Creek off of Platform Bridge Rd. near the town of Olema, CA. (more…)
Bird Banding, Fun for Kids of All Ages
Greetings,
Today I had the good fortune of heading to one of our offsites (Pine Gulch) which is located on Bolinas Lagoon. Overall we had a fairly busy day with a total of 18 birds captured in our mist nets. Captured species included Downy Woodpecker, Allen’s Hummingbird, Yellow-rumped “Myrtle” Warbler, American Goldfinch, and Song, White-crowned and Golden-crowned Sparrows. Nearly half of the birds were recaptures. Pictures of the Second Year male American Goldfinch and Second Year male Downy Woodpecker will follow at the end of the post. (more…)
OCWAs and WIWAs Oh My!!!
Greetings,
Today 4 of us headed out to the Point Reyes National Seashore to band at Muddy Hollow, one of our offsites. While rain threatened for part of the morning, we were able to get our full hours and were able to get some good birds to boot. Many warblers were around the site today, with a total of 30 or so individuals of 3 species within a 2 minute walk of the banding lab (back of a car). 2 of the 3 warbler species that we observed we also caught (Orange-crowned, and Wilson’s). Photos of the two individuals caught of these species follows the post. (more…)
TOWA!
Working on ETC. today I didn’t have much of an opportunity to get out into the field, except for the Area Search which I conducted around the Palo Field Station. Unfortunately, the was Area Search wasn’t very productive and only 24 individual birds were detected within the defined area in a 30 minute period. However, I was able to get wonderful looks at a male TOWNSEND’S WARBLER (Dendroica townsendi) (more…)
Back in the Saddle Again!
After several days of rain keeping us from working, we were finally able to get a few days of mist netting in during a break from the weather. On Wednesday the 5th I worked at a nearby offsite (Uppers) with Sandra, a fellow bander from Colombia. While the day was fairly slow- we caught 5 birds- it was a nice to get back out into the field again. (more…)
3/18/2006 Palo Banding
Greetings,
Today we had yet another slow day at Palo. Our only birds captured were a previously caught After Hatch Year Wrentit (color combo- OS/MG), and a newly caught Third Year, female, Northern (Red-shafted) Flicker. (more…)
(3/15/2006)- Slow Day at Palo
Today I banded with Libby and Sandra and we had a fairly slow day. We only caught 3 birds, 2 Ruby-crowned Kinglets and a single Wrentit. One of the Ruby-crowned Kinglets and the Wrentit were recaptures meaning that they have already been banded and processed before. Only one of the Ruby-crowned Kinglets was a new bird. (more…)