Brown Thrasher
The Brown Thrasher is one of the birds that we banded yesterday. Actually we captured a male and female (I think these photos were of the female). I had planned on doing this long description on the Brown Thrasher for the blog but I am feeling lazy today. Sorry! (more…)
Bird “Parts”
I am soo going to regret posting this because I am just going to get all kinds of sp@m from the verbiage that I am using! Today I visited Sharon’s “California Hill” MAPS banding station which is located about 45 minutes north of my house. Sharon has been helping me band birds at my stations for just about as long as I have been banding birds. It is nice that on my off days that I am able to assist her with her banding station. Today I was able to capture a few great bird photos but I will be posting them at a different time (maybe a birdQUIZ??)! I want to focus on today’s post with something unusual that we found on one of the birds. Before I get into that find, lets first talk about a few of the bird parts that us banders need to look at while banding!
When we finally got the rain!
Never been so close to a Bullfrog before!
Today we had strong thunderstorms that moved through the area with two Tornado warnings in the county just to the west of us. The rain came down hard given us some needed moisture into the ground. Guess this means that I will have to mow the lawn here soon? (more…)
Spanish Day at CLDC Banding Site
Chestnut-sided Warbler
On Saturday we had a superb day at the CLDC MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship) banding station. We banded 18 different species of birds, 23 were newly banded individuals, 9 were recaptured birds and we were able to collected 14 Avian Bird Flu samples. We had both Young Naturalist J and Young Naturalist C as my banding assistants for this banding session (including their parents). Young Naturalist C brought her friend Amy with her to the station and of course I also assigned some duties for her to do. (more…)
SWAT Banding and RTPI Group
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Today the Roger Tory Peterson Institute brought a group of people to our SWAT MAPS banding station here in Allegany State Park. This is the same group that I had gone on the Owl walk just last week. (more…)
Fishing for an Oriole Nest
On many occasions I have found birds using human made materials for and with their nest. Many of our nest boxes are not natural but made specifically for the birds to use. Other birds will pick up specific items for attracting the female into their territory like the Bowerbird (from Australia). They will take anything that is blue in coloring and build this elaborate structure and hope the female chooses his territory to build her nest. Then you can have many of our local birds will collect items for their nest like dryer lint, pet hair and even some string from your table cloth. One of these birds you might catching taking some of these items would be the Oriole!
A day of relaxing!
The female Long Dash was quickly flapping her wings and attracting the male.
Today I spent the day catching up on things I have been neglecting for a while!! Some of these things included sleep, things around the house, spending time with the cats and some time with the family. It was too nice of a day not to enjoy the outside, so I took a quick walk down into the Wolf Run area of Allegany State Park to search for Butterflies (which I have also been neglecting). (more…)
NYS Dragonfly and Damselfly Survey (Odonata)
Twelve-spotted Skimmer and group
Today was the Western New York training session for the New York Dragonfly and Damselfly Survey which has been organized by the NYS Natural Heritage Program. Funds for this project have come from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services State Wildlife Grants Program which is administered by New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. This year’s training session was held at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute and is the same location where the training was held two years ago. (more…)
Great Outdoors Program
Me with the kids!
This Thursday and Friday the recreation department here in Allegany State Park hosted the Great Outdoors Week program for almost 300 kids from 5 different school districts.
The excitement of releasing a hummingbird!
Evening Birding
The group looking for the Yellow-throated Warbler
Last night I joined the “Birding Across the Chautauqua –Allegany Region” field trip to Allegany State Park. This was their 3rd fieldtrip which focused on the birds during the evening and nighttime hours, especially owls!! This field trip is sponsored by the Roger Tory Peterson Institute, Jamestown Audubon Society and the Pfeiffer Nature Center. (more…)
Opening of the SWAT Station
First bird caught at the SWAT station – Gray Catbird!
Today (Wednesday) was the very first day of banding at the SWAT – MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship) banding station. I had to reschedule it after a storm had moved through on Monday morning and I felt bad about rescheduling since a few birding friends were willing to help me out with the banding (since I didn’t know how many birds that I would catch). So I ended up banding alone today. Temperatures ranged from 41F to 58F and we did have a very brief shower around 9am. It had been foggy all morning and the sun didn’t peak out until 10:30am.
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Five Baby Chickadees!
The Black-capped Chickadee is a common and widespread resident who visits our bird feeders. Then you find yourself very excited since one of these cute chickadees is using a nest boxes of yours. Young naturalist C had this happened and was so excited to tell me about her new resident. BTW: This is the chickadee nest that I posted as Cute Wordless Wednesday and thought she did such a wonderful job documenting their birth that she deserved another posting!
Allegany Post by Others
Having some problems with the post I had planned! SORRY! So, here are a few other blog post that I have found that are related to the Allegany Nature Pilgrimage that everyone should check out :
Biological Ramblings – You must see the amazing herps that he found here in Allegany!
A Passion for Nature – Jen had such a wonderful time that I rarely saw her!
Dragonfly Eye – Jeremy is amazing with the Dragonflies! Just check out the Dflies he found! Hint (Common Sanddragon)
Life in the Bristolwood was a blog that I found via a google search!
Jeff – How cool, found also in the google search and Jeff attended my Old Growth Walk! Would have commented but not a my space member.
Bill of the Birds – who was our Saturday evening speaker! Heck, he’s BT3 what else can I say!
While you are catching up on the recent Allegany Nature Pilgrimage post, I will figure out what went wrong with the post I had planned!! BTW: Wednesday morning I am doing my rescheduled SWAT – MAPS banding that was canceled due to he rain on Monday. Expect many more great up close banding photos!
First Day of Banding
Sunday started our 7th season of banding over at the CLDC – MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship) banding station. We were concerned over the weather remnants of “Barry” who got close enough that we almost had to close the station down early (due to the rain/thunder). Although we were lucky given that the thunderstorm passed just to the east of us and we received only a few rain drops. Temperatures ranged from 59F to 78F and everyone commented on how humid it was. It was cloudy for most of the morning and I think it was almost 11:00am once the sun finally start to peak through. (more…)
Allegany Nature Pilgrimage
This weekend was the 49th annual Allegany Nature Pilgrimage held here in Allegany State Park. This is my 12th year attending the pilgrimage and my 9th year as a trip leader. This year I was asked to lead two “Old Growth Forest Hikes” into the Big Basin area. I tried to show everyone a few different forest types so that everyone could have a better understanding of how an older growth forest operates. The two groups I took on the walk were wonderful and I had an opportunity to show the old growth forest to 67 different individuals.
One Year Ago, I got my …
Way back in high school we never had a camera club but we did have a journalism class. I had dated one of the girls who did the photography in the class and yes, my first kiss was in the dark room! I can still feel the goose-bumps just thinking about it. While spending many hours in the dark room (wink), I also learned about the basics of film processing! She told me which chemicals to use, proper framing of the pictures, and many other tricks in developing black and white photography. This experience ended up getting me the job of developing all the photos for a local weekly newspaper for about 2 years. At that time I used a free 35mm point and shoot camera for all my crazy little pictures that I took. Then I finally purchased my Nikon 6006 (SLR) back in 1995 and carried this camera everywhere I went. Birds were my passion and using a 400mm was essential for me in capturing them on film. This was also my earlier years of doing Environmental Education and I switched over to taking slide film instead of 35mm film. Using slide projectors were the way of life for so many years and I never thought that would ever change? (more…)
YEAH, second banding station ready for operation!
I finally have the second MAPS banding station all set up (well still have a few little things to do)! All just in time for some early Allegany Nature Pilgrimage doings. Today some friends from Boston came over to visit me at the banding station to do a little birding. We had many great birds like Willow Flycatcher, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Blue-winged Warbler, etc.. I should have taken a picture of it but his girls made some cool decorated sticks and boy they had some knee slapping jokes! This weekend will be so much fun seeing so many old friends (that I only see during the Pilgrimage) and guess who is the key speaker?? Bill Thompson III !! I sure hope Zick is able to come along!!
You must go over to Mary’s View to learn more about this photo being in her blogitat post.
Keeping Busy
This year I am starting a second MAPS banding station and of course I waited till the last second to set both of the stations. I have had to pull multi flora rose thorns out of my leg, been bitten by bugs, scratched my eye with a stick, blisters are on my hands and I am just tired for working till 9pm each night. This evening I finally have gotten everything ready for one of the stations to be open and hope to finish setting up the second station tomorrow evening sometime (before the weather gets iffy again).
Wonderful Visit!
Today NatureWoman (Pam) came out to visit me here in Allegany State Park and check out the big basin area (our older growth forest). After spending a few hours with the big trees, we visited many of the other “Allegany” tourist spots. We had a hard time taking pictures due to it raining every time we got out of the vehicles; we still had a blast chit chatting together! (more…)
Its has been 206 days since. . . .
. . . . I have seen a Monarch Butterfly. While walking around Red House Lake here in Allegany State Park this evening, I observed my very first Monarch for 2007! It is so hard to believe that it was over 6 months ago when these wonderful butterflies were migrating south to winter in California and Mexico. Their offspring continue their cycle and now moving back north again! I would assume the one I saw was a female and probably laying numerous eggs while moving north. Shouldn’t be too long before they become very common and they begin their movements south again.
When you find your first monarch butterfly, make sure you report it on Journey North’s website at: http://www.learner.org/jnorth/monarch/
Black-throated Blue Warbler Nest Building
While out on our big 110 bird day we came across this female Black-throated Blue Warbler doing some nest building. I knew we would be coming back to this same location; so I set up my digital camera. I took the video in lower quality so that I could get about 22 minutes of the female doing continuous nest building. I edited the clip down to the best minute with her completely focused on making the nest perfect.
Mon@rch's Nature Blog 