My Best Night Ever
The cutest fluff ball of the night!
I am soo tired and need to head to bed (it has been a long night!)! I just had to tell you about the 17 birds I caught this evening! Without a doubt this was my best night ever for the Allegany State Park Northern Saw-whet Owl banding station!! Perfect North East winds . . . . did I say perfect everything for migration?? I need to be at work at 8am tomorrow . . . . so I guess to continue going till sunrise isn’t an option!! When I closed my nets I could still hear a few Saw-whets moving around and vocalizing!! I should have stayed open!! Ugg (more…)
What an Owl Smells Like
Old picture of me teaching kids some bad habits
If you regularly follow this blog . . . . then you would know that I have an obsession with smelling the heads of woodpeckers. The woodpeckers head have a pine-musty odor to them but for some reason the smell is very pleasurable to me (ya, I am nuts – I know already)!! This evening while studying the migration of the Northern Saw-whet Owls . . . . I had a quick whiff of that odor! Bet you can’t guess what I did next?? (more…)
Surprised Big Fluff Ball Night!
Don and a Fluff Ball
Saturday evening a fellow bird bander Don Watt and his family joined me for some Saw-whet Owl banding here in Allegany State Park. He is interested in starting his own owl banding station and joined me to get a better idea on how I am catching these tiny owls. I was happy to capture a Northern Saw-whet Owl for them just before they headed home (High Five!). (more…)
Witch-hazel
Witch-hazel leaves & flowers
Witch-hazel is my favorite tree for many reasons. . . . It has always been a topic of discussion on if it is either a tree or a shrub?? My personal feeling is that this is more of a tree than a shrub but that is just my personal thought (no science behind that statement). I also love that this trees leaf is odd shaped and has some unique flowers. I can always find this tree flowering around mid October which I think is an excellent time of the year!! The greatest part of Witch-hazel is that people can extract an astringent from the bark and leaves that is used for things like; a hemorrhoid medication, shaving lotion, bug bites, acne cream and even helps with poison ivy! (more…)
Glow Worms and Saw-whets in that order!
Glow Worm (Lighting Bug Larva)
Last night (9th October) was another successful evening with my Northern Saw-whet Owl Banding Project here in Allegany State Park. I opened the nets just after dusk and then headed out for my first net check at 8pm. I had hoped for some owls but was more dazzled by the number of lighting bug (or firefly) larva that I found moving along the ground. (more…)
Fluff Balls
Northern Saw-whet Owl
Yeah! I finally caught not just one but two fluff balls last night (8 October 2007)! I have had the Northern Saw-whet Owl banding station open here in Allegany State Park since the 30th of September and was starting to wonder “where are they”!! This isn’t my latest dates but it was very close to it! Back in 2004 when I first started banding Saw-whets . . . . I caught my first bird on the 9th of October and was my first night “ever” trying to catch any! Then in 2005 we caught our first one on the 3rd of October and last year (2006) we caught one on the 1st of October. It has been promising to know that other local (Western New Yorkers and North Western Pennsylvanian) Saw-wheters also have been behind in catching these guys. (more…)
Rose-breasted Grosbeak Crazyness
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Today I headed over to a local elementary school and did a mini banding demo for some 2nd and 3rd graders. This was a very fun day with 30+ kids who were excited about birds and I was sooo happy to catch a Rose-breasted Grosbeak for them. This is a hatch year (born this year) Rose-breasted Grosbeak who is in its basic (winter) plumage. The red/yellow on the under wing coverts is the easiest way to determine the sex of the bird. Males have red and females have the yellow on their under wing covert. I just love the berry mess on this birds bill. (more…)
Everything but Saw-whets Last Night
What an evening!
The goal of my Northern Saw-whet Owl project is catching Saw-whets! But, in order to make that happen . . . . you sometimes have a few obstacles to work around. The video above was the Barred Owl who spent a great deal of the evening vocalizing around the nets. Hello Mr. Barred Owl . . . You are not helping me!! Go fly somewhere else!! (more…)
Opening Night
White-throated Sparrow
Busy weekend but I was still able to get my Northern Saw-whet Owl nets up for the 2007 season. If you didn’t know . . . . for the months of October and November (with cooperative weather) I am out banding Northern Saw-whet Owls here in Allegany State Park. (more…)
BBBO Birdies
Golden-crowned Kinglet and my thumb
This week I have been posting pictures from our “big” banding day at Braddock Bay Bird Observatory, which is located in Rochester, NY. My first two post talked about the Wood-Warblers and the Thrush species that were banded by the BBBO Staff. Today I wanted to do a post on some of the other great birds that were banded and how the staff is able to run a station like this. (more…)
BBBO Thrush
Hermit, Gray-cheeked and Swainson’s by Young Naturalist J
My previous post showed the amazing warbler day that we had at Braddock Bay Bird Observatory on Monday. But note that the warblers were not the only family of birds that we caught!! We had just as wonderful of a day with 4 species of thrush. (more…)
BBBO Warblers!
Magnolia Warbler
So many photos of our amazing banding day at Braddock Bay Bird Observatory . . . . I just had to split the pictures into 3 different post!! The first post is about warblers. I figured that I would look up “Warbler” in Wikipedia and they state “They are mostly brownish or dull greenish in color, of small size, easier seen than heard, and harder to determine to species. To Old World birders, “warblers” are the the archetypal “LBJ” (“little brown job”).” Must have been a non birder who wrote that . . . . warblers are easy to identify when looking at all their fieldmarks!!! (more…)
Spending the day at BBBO
Braddock Bay Bird Observatory
When you find yourself completely exhausted after taking a day off from work . . . . you just know you had an awesome day!! Today, I took my banding assistant (Young Naturalist J) to our favorite migration banding station. Typically when we head off to Braddock Bay Bird Observatory, it always seems like that we had picked the day after their best day of the year (and then end up getting skunked)! But . . . . this time we hit one of their best days of the season with bird’s being caught non-stop!! Young Naturalist J had two lifers and we had a handful of birds that we don’t normally get to handle. (more…)
Chimney Swifts in Allegany State Park
Chimney Swift
One of my joys of being around Allegany State Park is watching the Chimney Swifts entering chimneys around the Administration Building during dusk hours. These unique birds look almost like flying cigars and are remarkable fliers. You typically hear them chattering before you ever get a chance to see them. Chimney Swifts are constantly flying throughout the day in search of food and can travel long distances. They will roost and nest in chimneys and are historically known to use the hollow trees in the forest for nesting. I sometimes wonder if they are not still doing this in some areas. (more…)
OLD GROWTH TREES AND CAMPFIRE
Purple Headed Sneezeweed (all-time fave flower)
Yesterday I took a family that I have known for a very long time into the Big Basin area (old growth forest) of Allegany State Park. We had a wonderful time looking at the many old trees and then a few other unexpected treasures. We have an ongoing joke about how whenever I take them for a walk we somehow end up off trail and “sort of” get lost! I couldn’t let them down this year so everywhere we hiked “it was” off trail!! (more…)
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. (more…)
SWAT END YEAR REPORT
Song Sparrow (most captured species)
I have finally gone through all of my 2007 SWAT MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship) raw data this week. It has been hard trying to focus on this report with “other” new higher speed internet distractions that I have been having recently. Regarding the SWAT report: we had 6 banding sessions and able to capture a total of 164 different individuals with 34 same year recaptures. We used 8 (12 meter) polyester mist-nets and banded for 6 hours after the official sunrise time. That gave us a total of 198 captures for the station and we were very happy with the excellent year that we had. Even with the need to close the station early due to the Long-tailed Weasel that terrorizing us. We are not sure what we will do with next season (regarding the weasel) but we have all winter to figure something out. (more…)
numbers and letters
If you don’t see me online for the next few days. . . . I will be going bug eyed entering many numbers and letters into two different databases! This is the part of bird banding that isn’t as much fun as being with the birds. I will try to take some breaks to see what everyone is up to this week!
Last CLDC MAPS Session
A recaptured Common Yellowthroat who remembers me from last year.
Today was our last CLDC MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship) banding session for the 2007 season! This was such a wonderful year and I can’t wait to enter all my data into the computer to learn how this season compared with other years. I promise in the near future that I will do a summary for both CLDC and SWAT banding station. (more…)
SWAT Shut Down!
Long-tailed Weasel (with eye flash)
I made it official today . . . . the SWAT banding site is closed for the season. After an unwanted visitor showed some continued interest in my birds . . . . I made the decision to shut everything down for the safety of the birds. After discussing this situation with the Institute of Bird Populations, they agreed that my decision to shut down for the season is the best thing to do. (more…)
FOG AT THE CLDC MAPS
Tufted Titmouse
This morning was one of our foggiest days that we have had at the CLDC MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship) Banding Station in a VERY long time. I feared that this thick fog would reduce the number of birds that we would end up capturing. Instead the birdies were soo abundant that we found ourselves spending most of our time trying to catch up with net checks! (more…)
GOOD AND BAD at SWAT!
Did you ever have one of these days when many good things happen but then you have some bad things happen! Today is just one of those days at the SWAT MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship) banding station.
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Flickr Guest at CLDC MAPS
Sunrise Shot Overlooking the Banding Station
Yesterday was a slower day with the birds but we had some great company. Marg, who is a regular blog commenter and a wonderful flickr photographer visited the CLDC MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship) banding station. It was an awesome way to spend some time together to talk about banding, flickr, photography and life in general. (more…)
Mon@rch's Nature Blog 