A Passion for Nature

Ceruleans! June 26, 2009

All spring I’ve been trying to get down to the National Forest to tag along with Scott Stoleson’s team.  I never made it… until the first full day of summer!  This is the second year they have been targeting Cerulean Warblers for banding.  Why Ceruleans?  Audubon’s Watchlist entry for this species explains:

Formerly one of the most abundant breeding warblers in Ohio and the Mississippi River Valleys, its population plummeted in the 1900′s due to habitat destruction.

Cerulean Warblers nest in the upper canopy of mature forests in North America.  Their wintering grounds are in South America.  Both breeding and wintering sites have been changed considerably by human activity through the 1900s causing one of the sharpest population declines of all warblers…  70-75% overall decrease, according to Scott.

The mist-netting demonstrations that Scott’s team does at Audubon in spring, and the MAPS projects run by Tom LeBlanc throughout the summer do not target a single species.  In those projects, several nets are set up in various locations near the banding station and nearly the all birds that come into the nets are banded.  It’s a little trickier to target just one species.  Here’s how Scott’s team caught its first bird:

1. We drove out to a spot in the National Forest where Ceruleans had been spotted before.  We watched and listened.  It didn’t take long to hear a male singing fairly close to the road.  Scott played a recording of Cerulean song to draw the bird in.  During breeding season, Ceruleans are fierce protectors of their territories.  The sound of another male nearby was sure to cause concern.  Sure enough, down he came to investigate.
2. All binoculars went up to see if this male had a band or not.  (Having the curse of extremely bad eyesight since childhood, I was astounded they could find the tiny bird so quickly, let alone see an even tinier band around the fellow’s ankle!)  This one was unbanded!  The team mobilized to catch him.  Now remember – Cerulean Warblers like the upper canopy… so a standard ground-level net is not going to work.
   
3. No, Linda is not trying to shoot the bird with a bow and arrow!  Having located a suitable branch from which to hang the net, Linda shoots an arrow attached to fishing line.  Mike mans the reel.
4. Up and over a high branch goes the arrow.  When it returns, the fishing line is removed from the arrow and attached to a (tan) rope.  Mike reels in the line until the rope is up and over the branch.
   
5. Next they will attach a pulley system (that’s the blue ropes in the picture)  to the (tan) rope and hoist it all the way up to the limb.  Mike crawls into the brush to find a tree that will serve as an anchor for the system.
   
6. In the meantime, Scott and Emily are busy setting up the frame that will hold the mist net.  The MP3 player and the decoy are attached in the upper center part of the net.
   
   The frame is assembled.
   Attaching the mist net.

   
   The decoy:  Scott admits that they don’t know if the decoy really helps, but it amuses them, so they use it.

7. The net is hoisted up and secured.  A (black) rope on either side of the frame will allow Emily and Linda to turn the net to the desired angle and stabilize it so it doesn’t spin randomly.
   Scott turns on the MP3 player.
   Up she goes!
   
   The net is now in position, the decoy singing away.
   
8. Then we wait and watch.  We are lucky.  June 22nd is pretty late in the season to find males that are still aggressive about defending territory.  Many pairs are already feeding young – some that have fledged.  This little guy displayed all the classic behaviors of an aggressive, defensive male, and while it took a bit of time, he did finally “attack” the source of the other song.
9. The net is lowered; Scott removes the bird.  Linda, Mike, and Emily disassemble the net contraption and Scott processes the bird.
10. The bird will actually get 3 bands:  the standard numbered aluminum band will go on the bird’s left leg, and two colored plastic bands will go on the right.  (Last year’s birds were banded with aluminum on the right, colored on the left.)  These combinations will help the team identify individuals in the future without having to re-capture them.  (This year, the team has spotted 5 birds that they banded last year – most having returned to the exact same nest site.)
    Purple and blue colored bands for the right leg, aluminum for the left.
    Attaching the aluminum band.

    
    A little heat seals the plastic colored bands.  (The bird is unharmed and Scott’s burn is only mild.)

11. After weighing and many photos, the pretty fellow is released (by me!).
    Weight:  9.3 grams
    
    
    A fine Cerulean Warbler Male – with new jewelry.
    Scott takes many photos – from all angles.
    
    
    And they graciously let me hold him for a photo opp, then release him.

This first bird we caught and processed made it all look so easy.  We tried two more times – not on the road, but halfway to the summit of steep hillsides.  In the second attempt, the net placement was apparently on the boundary between two territories.  The bird on one side would not go in; the bird on the other side would not go in.  The third placement seemed perfect, but the birds were not interested in the “intruder’s” song… they seemed only interested in eating.  In fact, I watched through binoculars as one warbler extracted whatever critter rolls up the leaves… that was fascinating!

It was a fun, exhausting day of learning for me.  If I could do my life over, I would pursue a career in which I could do this sort of thing.  Maybe next time around?  For now, I’ll live vicariously through the lives of those who let me tag along.

Many thanks to Scott, Linda, Emily, Mike and Don for being patient with me (and sharing their lunches).

Learn more about Cerulean Warblers:

• Audubon Watchlist – Cerulean Warbler
• Bird Life – profile of Cerulean Warbler
• Cerulean Warbler – All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology
• Cerulean Warbler Atlas Project – Cornell Lab of Ornithology
• Living on Earth – interview with Greg Butcher, Director of Bird Conservation, National Audubon Society
• An Enigmatic Warbler – by Marcia Bonta

Three Warblers June 17, 2009

We had three different species of warblers last Saturday.  Two are pretty common throughout the continent.  Scroll down slowly and see if you know them before you get to the text below each picture that gives you the names:

Female:

Male:

Did you guess: Common Yellowthroat?

How about this one?

You’re right if you said Yellow Warbler.

The third warbler from last Saturday is an eastern bird:

Blue-winged Warbler

According to Cornell, the Blue-winged Warbler has expanded its range northward during the last century… Maybe it will expand to the west in the next century?

Bird Banding May 10, 2009

On Saturday, the bird banding team processed 14 birds.  Most were receiving new bands, but there were several recaptures.  Most notable was a Gray Catbird that had been banded here on May 19th, 2007… it was listed as being “after second year” then… so this was an old bird!

In the last few weeks, I’ve had several people ask me why we band birds.  Determining life spans is only one of the many uses of bird banding data.  For more information on how banding data are used, visit the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center website by clicking here.

For me, the most exciting part about bird banding is the way people respond.  According to his mother, this young man was very reluctant to go along to the bird banding demonstration:

It only took seeing one bird come out of the net and get a bracelet before he was hooked.  His family stayed right through to the end and that boy was eager to go on every net check, delighted each time it was his turn to release a bird.

Actually, it wasn’t his turn to release this one.  But after watching the American Robin nip at Emily’s hands during processing, none of the other kids were too eager to let it go!  Emily gently dumped the Robin onto sleeve-covered hands.

And it’s not just the kids who delight in seeing the birds up close:

Over 60 people visited the banding station on this lovely Saturday morning, including Sarah’s Little Explorers class:

Bird Banding demonstrations repeat at Audubon on May 16th and 23rd, 7am-11am.  Come on down!

And so it begins… April 26, 2009

… another spring/summer banding season…

Scott Stoleson and his team, Linda Ordiway, Don Watts, and Emily Thomas came to Audubon today to begin five weeks of banding.  They will be at the Pavilion field Saturdays through May 23rd from 7am until 11am.  If you live nearby, you should definitely plan a Saturday morning visit to the Center to watch the demonstrations…  So much to learn… so cool to see the little birdies up close.

Scott looks on as Emily holds the first bird of the season, an American Robin female, for her photo opportunity.  This might be the little lady building a nest in the rafters of the pavilion.  We’ll have to wait and see…

Black-capped Chickadees were plentiful…  I think we banded six!  They are so cute when the come to the feeder, or better yet eat out of your hands…  But in the nets, and attempting to band… that’s another story.  With that tiny little beak a chickadee can grab on hard and strong when it wants to.

(Emily makes grumpy faces when she has to band a Chickadee.)

Three different kinds of sparrows made it into the nets…  I was disappointed in my photos of the Lincoln’s Sparrow… the only one that was in focus, it had its eyes half-closed:

Lincoln’s Sparrows winter south of us and breed north of us… This little guy is just passing through.  It had no visible fat, so we guess it may have arrived last night.  Having used up all reserves, it will eat up, store more fat, and then move further north before looking for good breeding habitat.

Another north-bound migrant is the White-throated Sparrow.  Emily and Don mentioned knowing of a couple of breeding pairs as far south as Forest and McKean counties in Pennsylvania.  But most head further north.

I have had one singing “Oh Canada, Canada, Canada” in my backyard every morning for a week.  I wish he would stay, such a pretty song…  But alas, I fear he will move on.

We caught two White-throated Sparrows.  Both had rather a lot of fat that will provide them with the energy they need to fly further north.  You can see the fat when Emily blows on the feathers, separating them:

This one was so chubby he wouldn’t fit in the small pill bottle we used to weigh his buddy…  So he had to move up to the medium size container.  After weighing, he sat for a bit before flying off:

This one will stay and breed here.  Song Sparrow:

This tricky little birdie flew away before we could weigh it.  Then, when we re-captured it, we forgot that we didn’t have its weight!  House Wren:

The early bird catches the worm and the early bander catches the birds… when things got slow later in the morning, we amused ourselves looking for herps.  Linda impressed us all with her ability to reach through rose bushes and pull this handsome fellow out of the pond: