My First Babies
Blue-winged Warbler
Today we banded our first babies at the CLDC MAPS banding station . . . . yep 3 baby chickadees decided to stop over for a visit. The morning started with some thick fog that got us more wet than helped us in capturing any morning birdies. Once the warm sun started evaporated the fog . . . . we finally began to capture our first birdies of the morning. Highlights included the Field Sparrow, Blue-winged Warbler, Veery, baby Chickadees and 2 Hairy Woodpeckers (although the woodpeckers were not the most cooperative visitors)!!
Veery
We ended up with 13 species of birds being captured in the mist nets but since Young Naturalist J couldn’t get to the net quick enough (then almost fell) . . . we only banded 12 species and missed the local Black-billed Cuckoo (no pressure buddy). Other teasing birds that didn’t get captured included the Savannah Sparrow, Eastern Kingbird and Scarlet Tanager who outsmarted us banders . . . . well this time!! Of those 12 species that we captured . . . . we placed new bands on 12 individuals and recorded info on 19 recaptured individuals (I have not looked up their history yet). The morning only allowed me to collected 9 avian bird flu samples from the birds but over all was a good steady morning.
Hairy Woodpecker
I also had many new (human) visitors at the station this morning (three were from the Jamestown area and the other was from Pittsburgh PA area). They joined us from the Roger Tory Peterson Institute/ Jamestown Audubon field trip that had been scheduled for yesterday to visit the CLDC banding station. Ya Ya . . . I rescheduled the banding for today because of the wet weather that moved through the area and although the station was closed . . . . they still did the field trip. But these guys who visited today decided to return and learn more about our banding operation. I hope you guys enjoyed yourself and return again whenever you have the time!! We also had another banding assistant student who joined us for the first time and worked on gaining more experience with mist netting birds. I would like to thank Kyle and the regular banding assistants (Young Naturalist J and Jennifer) who took the time to help! Thanks for keeping the banding station from falling behind and a fun place for spend your morning.
House Wren
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Wonderful shots Tom-and congratulations on your first babies! We went out looking for butterflies today but were not too successful-and since noon all we’ve had our thundershowers!
15 June 2008 at 9:38 pm
Great shots. It must be amazing to catch and tag the babies.
15 June 2008 at 9:40 pm
Great photographs! That’s a fine-looking Veery.
15 June 2008 at 9:57 pm
That Hairy Woodpecker seems to be giving you the business. It looks like you got some nice weather.
15 June 2008 at 11:48 pm
Great pictures. I can picture YNJ trying to get to the net in time for the Black-billed Cuckoo. Doh!
How do you collect avian bird flu samples? Blood samples, swabs?
16 June 2008 at 12:21 am
What beautiful beebies!!
16 June 2008 at 6:33 am
Figures YN-J would let the Cuckoo go… 🙂 Sounds like an awesome day!
16 June 2008 at 7:56 am
What amazing portraits Tom, the woodpecker is awesome, each of these little guys have such great expressions !! 🙂
16 June 2008 at 10:53 am
Sounds like you had an amazing time – how exciting to capture the babies! Great photos – as always!!!
16 June 2008 at 12:09 pm
Your first babies – yay!! Your photos are fantastic, as usual! Wish I could be there with you guys!
16 June 2008 at 7:23 pm
@ Marg – thanks and now is when aging the birdies can get tricky! Thunderstorms . . . ugg!
@ ncmountainwoman – thanks and it is fun seeing all birds up close!
@ John – thanks and I agree it is VEeRY nice!
@ Trixie – thanks and nice to have some sunny weather again!
@ Linda – thanks and was fun for sure! Swabs . . yes!
@ Jayne – thanks but didn’t take pictures of the baby d’s
@ Bethany – exactly . . guess what else he did . . I was placing a COYE into a bag as he threw me the clothing pin . . . I reached up to grab the pin and the COYE flew out of the bag before I could close it up! I blamed him for that loss also! He disagrees with that but does admit to loosing the 2nd COYE as he was reading the recapture numbers (which he didn’t get). You missed a fun day!
@ Bernie – thanks and they do have great expressions!
@ Sherri – sure did and thanks!
@ Pam – thanks and was a good time!
16 June 2008 at 9:23 pm
Love the shot of the woodpecker…he doesn’t look too happy, lol!
16 June 2008 at 11:39 pm
Most of the little birds look sweet but that Hairy looked a bit disgruntled :o)
17 June 2008 at 5:48 am
Oh, YN-J lol! That’s just too funny! When he’s gone in July you might actually get to band all of the captured birds! Just kidding J 🙂
17 June 2008 at 8:25 am
@ Amy – thanks and the woodpecker had gotten me good!
@ Mary – thanks and the woodpecker wasn’t too happy with me!
@ Bethany . . . he’s only gone for 10 days but for sure my numbers will be better during that time! LOL
17 June 2008 at 8:38 pm
What wonderful portraiture! You should self-publish a book of your amazing bird close-ups – I know of nobody else who has taken anything like the portraits you have!
17 June 2008 at 11:54 pm
I’m always so envious of these shots – oustanding close-up pictures.
I have a question for you – if you had an early fledging of chickadees, do you clean out the nest or will they use it again for a second brood? I’ve seen conflicting info about the number of broods, but NOTHING about whether they’ll reuse a previously-used box that hasn’t been cleaned. Any help would be appreciated!
20 June 2008 at 9:05 am