Random Meowing Catbird

I think this is a young catbird--note it is banded. I digivideoed it at Carpenter Nature Center.

Young Grosbeak

So, I'm in Rhode Island at the moment hanging at the Swarovski Headquarters. I'm eating lunch (real mashed potatoes, thank you very much, Swarovski Cafe) under a large crystal chandalier. Ah life. I'm giggling too because Non Birding Bill has just sent me a link to a limited edition Beverly Hills 90210 iPod Nano. But, if I download all the episodes, will I still have room for birdJam?

Check out this funky bird in hand that we got in at Carpenter Nature Center last Friday (boy am I behind on some blog entries or what. To those who are not as familiar with birds this might be a tad confusing but banding wise this was a fairly easy bird to figure out. We didn't have to debate too much with the Pyle over it. It's a hatch year male rose breasted grosbeak. Normally you have to look at feathers and see if they're truncate and fresh or relatively abraded, blah blah blah. But, because this dude looks like a female grosbeak with pink on the undersides of the wings, that tells us he's fresh from the nest and male.

It this upclose head shot you can see the gape at the corners of his beak indicating a young bird. Don't get me wrong, even though he's young, that beak is still quite capable of breaking the skin. Here's hoping he survives his first migration and visits us again next spring.

Okay, now back to looking at naked binoculars.

A Waxwing And Some Woodpeckers

Check out what we got in the nets on Friday at Carpenter Nature Center. No that's not a female cardinal tarted up with excessive eyeliner, that's a cedar waxwing. There are waxwings around Carpenter, and by their behavior, I'm sure they are nesting, but I am always too distracted to figure out where the nest is.

We were actually able to age this bird. Notice something missing? Check the wings--there's no "wax" on the wing. This is actually a second year bird (it hatched last summer). Waxwings do not get those red waxy tips until their second fall. The waxy tips are the result of a astaxanthin, a carotenoid pigment. We also had to measure the yellow tips on the tail--they are shorter in younger birds than they are in the adult birds.

Here's a female red-winged blackbird. These birds just look kind of like an overgrown sparrow when you see the flying around marshes, but they are quite pretty up close and in hand. Note that she also has reddish shoulder patches, similar to the male of the species.

The big excitement of the day was a male northern flicker in the net. You can tell he's male by his black mustache. I had actually just stepped outside with a male goldfinch that I had just banded and was thinking, "Oh, this would be a good picture for the blog, when I noticed something large in the net with a white rump. I immediately let the goldfinch go (we'll get more, so I can get a photo another day) and walked quickly to the nets.

The flicker started to fly and I noticed that it was actually on the other side of the net than I was on. Also, as it flew, I could see it was only caught by one foot. I heard more banders coming out of the building so I just reached through the net, and put my hand over the flick and secured it against my body. Our master bander, Jim Fitzpatrick got hold of the flicker on my side and I went to the other side of the net. In less than a minute, the flicker was out of the net, and Jim banded him.

The bird was a study in elegant design, beauty--not bad for an ant specialist. Check out the yellow feather shafts on the wing feathers that give this bird the old name "yellow-shafted flicker."

Check out that yellow when it flies.

Another interesting bird that came in was a recently fledged red-bellied woodpecker. It looks enough like a red-bellied woodpecker, but the red on the head is a little weird and doesn't match up with the coloration on males and females.

Another interesting bird that came in was a recently fledged red-bellied woodpecker. This bird just had a small red patch on the top of the head. So, we had to break out the Peter Pyle banding book to see if we could find a clear way to sex this bird. We could measure either the spikey part of the tongue, or the culmen--which is basically the upper mandible of the bird. Females have smaller culmens and tongue tips than males. We came up with female based on measurements.

I also pointed out the gape on the above bird. That's one way you can tell an immature bird in some species, that yellow corner on the bill. Keep your eye open for that with the birds that are showing up at your feeders.

Frisky Finches Already?

I forgot to mention that on Friday at Carpenter, I watched a pair of goldfinches gathering nesting material! They usually don't start that until late June early July when the thistle down is out. Have I just been ignoring them and they do start nest building early if old cattail down is available? I will have to pay more attention.

Longevity

Took a little bit of a blogging break over the weekend. Non Birding Bill and I celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary. Always nice to reestablish the pair bond.

I had longevity on the brain on Friday, not only by anticipating the weekend, but because we got some old birds in the nets at Carpenter Nature Center. Normally, we'll get one or two retraps in a session and one of those birds might be a few years old, but this time we got in several older downy woodpeckers. There must have been something in the air:

A downy woodpecker originally banded 5-2-03 as an after second year bird was retrapped 5-30-08!

Another downy woodpecker originally banded on 11-14-03 as an after hatch year bird was retrapped on 12-19-03, 4-28-06 and 5-30-08.

A third downy woodepecker originally banded 11-5-04 and retrapped 5-30-08!

Though our oldest down on Friday was over seven years old and possibly a record for Carpenter, that's not the oldest down woodpecker. According to the Bird Banding Lab, the oldest downy woodpecker on record was eleven years old and eleven month.

Carpenter Banding In May

We had a great sampling of birds come into the nets on Friday...and lots of people came to enjoy the beautiful day outdoors and watch what we do at Carpenter Nature Center. I have finished my banding class and am an official apprentice--with a certificate. I'm not sure what I will eventually do with this, my primary goal was just to be a better volunteer for Carpenter and I really do feel so much better taking birds out of nets and processing them now--even birds like Bitey McBitersons in the above photo (Bitey McBitersons is the lesser known folk name of the quick to nip northern cardinal). The little boy in the above photo is Aaron. He and his mother followed us around and Aaron was a big help to me--when we would have several birds in the nets, I would put them in bags and he helped carry the bags back to the processing station. Several bags of chickadees, sparrows, and warblers can be heavy. It's always nice to encounter a helpful gentleman in the field--thanks, Aaron! Check out the awesomeness that is the clay-colored sparrow! Drink in its brown and gray goodness. We had two come into the nets just about a foot from each other. I suspect it was some territorial chasing on their part. Okay, now note the bill of the clay-colored sparrow above. Now, check out the second one below:

It had some kind of nasty gunk on the tip. I wondered if it had foraged and got some mud on the tip or if it had been eating some old berries that crusted up the tips or what was going on. The bird appeared otherwise to be very healthy.

A big highlight of the day was this female Canada warbler. Even though she's not as bright as the male, she is a very striking bird. Another highlight was a chickadee that was already banded. When we looked up its banding number, we discovered that the female chickadee was first trapped and banded in January 2003 and at that time she was in her second year. Think of that--a six year old female chickadee still going strong. Incredible!

Common yellow throats were probably the most common warble we got in the nets. I just love these guys up close. As we were getting birds out of the nets, I didn't have my binoculars or my digiscoping equipment with me, guaranteeing that something super cool would fly by--and it did. A red-tailed hawk with a snake! At first, I thought it was a falconry bird with jesses and a leash hanging down (Jim said some falconers had been by recently tracking a "lost" red-tail, but that bird did not have a leash, just two jesses, or leather anklets attached). Another Carpenter volunteer was smart and had his binoculars handy and could see that it was, in fact a snake. What was strange was that the red-tail disappeared in the trees with the snake and about ten minutes later reappeared and just kind of hung in the air with the snake hanging behind it. The hawk didn't appear to be in any rush to get it to a nest or land and eat it, just kind of slowly grabbed a thermal and glided along. I later asked my buddy Amber if she had any idea why the red-tail would appear to be carrying the snake around, almost as if flying with a type of trophy, showing it off. That's not a smart thing to do, if anything it kind of advertises to other predators to come and steal your food. She wondered if the adult red-tail had young in the nest and it was about time for them to leave and it was advertising the snake to get them to fly out and learn to hunt on their own? That seems very plausible, but once again, birds leave me with more questions than answers.

Carpenter Banding On KARE 11

I'm told that my fingernail polish is visible in this video about banding birds at Carpenter Nature Center on KARE 11. I have not watched it. Now sleep and on to some hardcore digimiscopin'.

What I Missed At Carpenter Today

I may be at the World Series of Birding. I may even be feeling a little high on my horse because I got to see a wood sandpiper today. However, Larry Sirvio just emailed over his photo of what came into the banding nets at Carpenter Nature Center this morning:

Arrrgh. I am just pea green with envy! Great photo, Larry!

From White-throats To White-Crowneds

This has to be a quick and dirty post, I have an early flight in the morning.

This morning while at banding class at Carpenter Nature Center, I looked around and everyone had a white-crowned sparrow like the above bird in their hands, a little different from the white-throated sparrows a couple of weeks ago.

We did get in one male yellow-rumped warbler. It's still a tad chilly here and the insects are not out in full force so the insect eating birds are still having to improvise. One male yellow-rumped warbler was foraging on the ground at one of the feeding stations. As I watched, a downy woodpecker flew in and began pecking on the suet cage. As the downy pecked, tiny pieces of suet fell to the ground and the warbler would scurry to snarf up the suet scraps.

I was painfully pinched by a female cardinal today. The funny thing was that she was barely caught in the nets. When I walked over to retrieve her, she clamped down on a tiny piece of flesh on my inner hand (worst pinch I've ever had--owie) and pretty much rolled out. Had she not clamped down on my hand, she probably would have easily gotten herself out of the nets. Above, Erin is banding her. She had the genius idea of letting the cardinal bite the bag, while she placed a band on her foot. The cardinal is actually holding the hole bag in her mouth above the ground--that's some bite.

We got in a couple of interesting sparrows too. Above is a field sparrow--check out that pink beak!

And here's a Lincoln's sparrow, migration is really kicking in. Speaking of migration, have you seen the story that scientists may have cracked the bird navigation code?

And now I must go to sleep. Tomorrow I head for Cape May and The World Series of Birding. I don't know what's my favorite part: saying that I'm going to the World Series of Birding or that I'm on the Swarovski Digiscoping Team. And at some point I'm going to have to tell you guys about the rules for this thing...and the handy warbler study aid I've been using from birdJam. I kid you not, thanks to birdJam, I now have a playlist that consists of nothing but warbler chip notes.

Migration Floodgates Opened At Carpenter Nature Center

We had so many birds fly into the nets today (like the Nashville warbler above) at Carpenter Nature Center that I did not have a chance to document them all. I really felt more like a helper today as opposed to someone under foot. It was awesome, I was getting birds out nets--even uber challenging ones, I was using my Pyle book and my Pyle dichotomous key and even understanding it to age and sex birds--it was just sweet. Hey, Peter Pyle, have I thanked you lately for making the words "truncate" and "abraded" part of my daily vocabulary? Perhaps next time I get my hair done I will tell my stylist Rachel, "I would like the bangs fresh and truncate and the back to be tapered and relatively abraded with pale to buffy edging."

You can see his little rusty feathers on his crown. Migration was in full swing, as I was taking birds out of the nets I could hear red-eyed vireos singing and Jim Fitzpatrick, our instructor could hear a towhee.

And eventually it was trapped and banded. Jim said that he thinks this eastern towhee may be a first time banded bird for CNC--he got to do the honors of banding this bird. It was an exciting bird to see up close. This particular male's eyes were not bright red, but more of a rust.

Check out how the eyes on this male perfectly matches the rufus on his flanks. Very cool bird. Just as we stepped out to let the towhee go, he made a few odd squealing sounds and from the nearby woods we heard an uncertain, "Towhee?" Jim and I looked at each other--there was another towhee was in the woods. We let him go and he flew in the direction of the towhee call. What a bonus bird.

A surprise today were two clay-colored sparrows. My fellow classmate Sue heard them out on the prairie but we didn't expect them in the nets. Two came in at the same time in the same net, I wonder if this was related to mating? Two males chasing each other or a male in pursuit of a female?

I thought this was going to be my big challenge bird today--a female ruby-crowned kinglet. She was so tiny, it was like trying to get a dust bunny out of the nets. I took a deep breath, grabbed a toothpick to help remove the net tangled around the wings and got it out. Woof. I got her in the bag and eventually got to band her. She was so light, I decided to take her outside to band her. I wasn't used to banding such a tiny bird and chances were could that she could slip from my fingers in process. I thought it would be better to just have her fly away totally than get loose in the building and hit a window. All went well, I got the tiny band on her, measured her wings, and away she went.

But, she was not the most challenging bird of the day for me. It was this male rose-breasted grosbeak (he still has some of his brown juvenile plumage from last year--that made aging him a little easier). At one point we had several birds waiting to be processed but we hadn't checked the nets. I asked Jim what would be helpful, helping to band or doing a round to check the nets. He told me to check the nets and if there were several in one net to give a shout and someone would come out to help. I checked one net and there were four birds--including the grosbeak. We had been warned that grosbeaks and cardinals would bite the crap out of our fingers. I thought about saving the grosbeak for Jim and concentrating on the chipping sparrows, but I realized that I would have to learn on one of these sooner or later, might was well be now.

At first, I tried to hold him so that he couldn't reach my fingers as I tried to get him out of the net, but that just wasn't getting him free, so I changed my grip and she started to bite my hand. When he would get the entire tip of my finger in the grasp of that fat beak--it wasn't too bad, almost like being bitten by a sharp-shinned hawk. However, when he would use his beak to pinch and grab a tiny piece of skin...ZOWIE, that hurt. He also completely scraped off the nail polish on my index finger. But, I didn't have it so bad.

Fellow classmate Kelly worked to get a downy woodpecker out of the nets and he went after her fingers like Homer Simpson in a donut factory. Boy, that woodpecker seemed to know where to strike, right on the cuticle and along a knuckle. Downy woodpecker blood lust, who knew?

Kelly took her banding wounds in stride.

I ended my morning by banding a male brown headed cowbird. When he was in the net, he was incredibly docile, but as soon as I had him in the bag he freaked and was fluttering like crazy. Since cowbirds lay their eggs in the nests of other birds contributing to the decline of many species of birds including thrushes and warblers, it was tempting to do some experimental neutering on this male, I could not. The CNC permits only allow us to place a band on the birds and measure them, so I had to let him go.

The male cowbird really is kind of a striking bird up close. They filled an important niche when the bison roamed the prairie by following the large herds and eating the insects kicked up by the large animals. The traveler lifestyle isn't conducive to raising chicks, so they evolved over time to lay eggs in nests of other species of birds and those parents would raise their young. There aren't any herds to follow anymore, so the cowbirds follow the sedentary humans. One female cowbird depositing 60 eggs while following a herd of bison for miles and miles is one thing. One female cowbird depositing 60 eggs in a neighborhood can cause problems.

I have to admit that after spending the winter banding mostly juncos, I wondered how I would handle doing several species in one day, but I think I'm going to be fine. Can't wait to see what the rest of May brings and who knows, maybe by the end of summer I'll be ready for those difficult flycatchers.