CLDC END YEAR REPORT

Eastern Towhee

Here is my end of the year report for the CLDC MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship) 2007 season. I have not entered all the data into the computer yet . . . . so this is only preliminary “end of the year” report. I quickly went through the data for the species numbers (hope I didn’t miss anything)! We had 7 banding sessions and were able to capture 153 new individuals and 14 recaptured individuals from previous years. We used 10 (12 meter) Polyester mist-nets and banded for 6 hours after the official sunrise time. We had 167 different individuals captured with 200 total captures (including same year captures) for the 2007 season.

Some Simple Graphs of New and Recaptured Species for 2007

We were very happy with the season and the numbers were right around what they normally are for this station. We did find a few Leaf Viburnum Beetles on some of the Arrowwoods that were growing but Arrowwoods are still in very bad shape. I do not see any of the Arrowwoods recovering for a while (which is sad). We had a total of 31 different species (not including the hummingbird) captured at the station and had no unusual captured for the station. Top five species caught included Song Sparrows (27), Common Yellowthroat (26), Chestnut-sided Warbler (17), Gray Catbird (11) and House Wren (10). Some additional high numbers of species captured included Indigo Bunting (9), Black-capped Chickadee (8), and Field Sparrow (6).

Black-billed Cuckoo

We did have a very interesting list of recaptured individuals at the CLDC site this season. A pair of Chestnut-sided Warblers who were originally caught together on 6/10/06 were then caught again in same net again this season together. They say that if pairs return to the same site . . . . then they will continue to mate together . . . . but if someone doesn’t return, they find a new mate (this pair obviously found each other again). I also had two other recaptured Chestnut-sided’s from 2005. One Song Sparrow was recaptured from 2005 and a Black-capped Chickadee was also from 2005. We had three Common Yellowthroats recaptured from 2005 and one from 2006. The highlighted recaptures were a Gray Catbird from 2004 and a Red Eyed Vireo who was originally banded back in 2003 returned to the site. All of these birds were originally banded by my team in the same location that they were first recaptured previously. It is exciting knowing that they had made the long adventure down south for the winter and then returned one, two or even four years later to the same exact area they had been first caught!! I am very interested to hear where Jen’s banded bird originally come from (since it wasn’t one of mine)!

Hooded Warbler

I would like to thank the numerous volunteers, families, parents and kids who arrive at the station very early in the morning to assist with the banding. I also have to give a huge THANKS to all of my field assistants like Young Naturalist J, C, E and H for their help with the many jobs they are assigned to do. Also to the Parents of the Young Naturalist who without a doubt enjoy the banding as much as the kids do! They treat the work they are doing here as if it was their “job”. In many ways it is more demanding than your typical job because they “have” to know what they are doing (to make sure no birds get injured)! Thanks again guys and I am proud to have you as part of our team!

The kids working together!

Please be sure to check out all of my CLDC MAPS tags for post relating to the CLDC banding session.