Fantastic Banding At Mr. Neil's

Quick notes first: My buddy Amber can be seen in an odd photo I took of a Mandrake Carrot at Lorraine's blog and Mr. Neil's blog. Rumor has it that the MC is working it's way towards our home for a sacrifice to the great Disapproving Rabbit.

Tea and Food linked my Chicken of the Woods post. I have not found any in the usual places this year. I think it's been too dry. I'm worried about not finding my all time fave wild edible - Hen of the Woods. But that's one of the reasons wild food is such a delight when it happens, you just never know for sure if you'll have it.

Sunday was the day I always knew we could have at Mr. Neil's. I always knew there was great banding potential and great things to be learned. I've asked Mark and Roger to band and they've been out a couple of times and we've gotten some birds, but nothing like this past Sunday. It was good timing with the migration and placement of the nets.

We had some nets set up around the feeders and another set down in the woods near the creek (but far from the beehives). The nets were so busy around the feeders that after we got birds out, we would furl the nets up so we could quickly process the birds we had. I think we banded a total of 53 birds on Sunday.

The most common species banded that day? Goldfinches! I'll have to double check Roger's report, but I think he said they banded a total of 27 goldfinches? It was insane around the feeders, they would unfurl the nets and in less than 3 minutes, there would be 6 goldfinches. These are fun to band and I noted some things that banders look at when a bird is in hand. Notice the rough and beat up look of the primary wing feathers? Those are older feathers that have been worn with use. Then notice how some are fresh looking and not too beat up.

You can do this with all birds and Mark's research with banding is the aging of down and hairy woodpeckers based on feather replacement symmetry and wing feather color. According to his research, you can age a downy or hairy up to four years. Next time you see a downy or hairy woodpecker on your feeder, take a minute to look at the wings. Sometimes, you'll notice that some of the wing feathers will be brownish instead of black--that's all part of Mark's aging system.

At one point, we had so many birds in the feeder nets that Mark and Roger told Amber and I bag only non banded birds, any birds that already had a band, we were to note the number and let it go. A could were found and Mark and Roger were able to figure out if it was banded last spring or fall. I took out the above goldfinch and noticed right away that the band was on the right foot--we normally put it on the left. I assumed that this was probably a bird they let me band last fall and spring when I was still learning and somehow managed to put it on the wrong foot. I read off the number. Mark and Roger looked at each other and said, "Bag it!" Turns out, this banded goldfinch was not banded by Mark and Roger--it wasn't wearing one of their assigned bands! This is the type of excitement that banders live for. It's exciting to get any of your birds recovered and get the data, but to get someone else's bird is just as exciting. The bird had a brood patch (meaning she's nesting nearby). The band looked fairly new...is someone nearby banding birds? Or did she get banded this past spring and did she travel a good distance? Mark and Roger are going to submit the band number to the Bird Banding Lab and we'll have to wait and see on the results.

UPDATE: We now know where that finch came from!

It will be interesting to note how many banded goldfinches will stick around--27 is a lot of finches. But towards the end of the day, Amber and I were noticing non banded finches at the feeder--how did we miss you? Finches do wander in the winter, but I'll be keeping an eye out for them at the feeders--and for one with the right foot banded.

The feeder nets were pretty hoppin' but we also had the nets in the woods. Mark and Roger could hear LOTS of birds in the woods, but they were high in the canopy and we weren't sure if they would come down. We got one bird right away--recognize the species? I wasn't too surprised to find it in the nets, they have nested near where the nets were placed. It's an ovenbird!

The ovenbird is the species that goes "teacher teacher teacher" in the woods. I got some footage of Mr. Neil's ovenbird earlier this year. Here's the link to that blog entry. I doubt it's the same bird, but nice to know some are still here this week.

As Amber and I were taking in the beauty of the ovenbird, Amber and I took note of the feathers on the back...hm, kind of olive...

...kind of like the olive feathers found stuck to the toes of a sharp-shinned hawk at Frank's banding station the day before. I have to say that if I were a sharpie, I would target an ovenbird--that's one beefy warblers. They are chunky and feel like they would fill you up a lot better than some tiny yellow-rumped warbler.

The ovenbird is a brown bird, but they do have that crazy rusty cap on their heads and it's a bird that you rarely get to see from the top down and it was fun to just take in every nook and cranny of the feathers. After the ovenbird, the woods net wasn't getting any traffic. We could hear warblers and vireos passing overhead, but couldn't get them down. I started to think about how Hawk Ridge uses owl calls to bring in birds for owl banding in the fall. Why not try that on Mr. Neil's property? Territory song will not work this time of year, but some chip notes would work. I grabbed my iPod and iMainGo Speaker. BirdJam has a new warbler playlist that not only has tracks of songs, but tracks of chip notes for each warbler species. I also have Cornell's Voices of North American Owls which has each type of owl call for every North American species on individual tracks. So, I made a quick mobbing playlist: a single eastern screech owl trill followed by chip notes of a few warbler species I know could be found in Mr. Neil's woods. The whole playlist lasted less than two minutes. I hung my iPod near the nets and walked in the woods a bit with Amber. We walked back to the nets:

A northern waterthrush! It was so strange to see this bird in hand being so still. When you see them along creeks, they are always bobbing their tails like little Fergies.

It was a good chance for me to really work on telling northern waterthrushes from Louisiana waterthrushes. This one is for sure a northern because of the yellowish wash and the spotting on the chin. The only other way I did it before was with song, having them in hand is a chance to hone your id skillz.

We tried the playlist once more and when Amber and I returned to the net, we saw a flycatcher perched just in front of the net. It looked young and we tried walking towards it to see if it would flush into the net. It flew over, but the reason why it flushed was that another bird was already in the net--a great crested flycatcher! After Amber took this guy out of the net and walked it back to the banding table, the other flycatcher kept following us. I think it was a young bird wondering what was going on with its parent, but without DNA tests, can't know for sure.

This bird is a beauty. They are also cagey as all get out, I always have a tough time digiscoping these dudes and was surprised we got one in the nets. Check out all the yellow on the belly and along the wings.

And where the bird is brown, it's not just regular brown, it's a beautiful rust. These birds are cavity nesters and I have seen them use a Peterson bluebird box. Periodically, birdhouse manufacturers will try to make great crested flycatcher houses but they never seem to catch on. I think there's a block. When people think flycatcher, they thing drab brownish gray. Wouldn't you love to have a dynamite looking bird like this--and like bluebirds, they're insectivores!

Even the inside of their beaks are colorful. These guys are known for their loud "reep, reep" call. This guy gave a much whinier version of that. He also snapped his bill a few times, similar to what an owl does when threatened. Just a cool insect eating bird all around.

Alas, we tried our mobbing playlist two more times and the birds seemed to have figured us out. "Hey, did you notice that screech owl trills the exact same way every time? Hmm, and did you notice that when it's mobbed, the same birds go in the same order, never overlapping each other...call me bird brained, but that is suspicious." Even though we didn't get huge amounts of birds, we got some awesome birds. I'm going to definitely watch the ovenbirds that nest around there next spring and see if either of the pairs are banded.

Banding Birds At Mr. Neil's

I know quite a few banders and I've always wanted to try a banding project at Mr. Neil's. Number one - he's got great bird nesting habitat. Number two, a fair number of migrants pass through and use the area for fueling up for migration. So, I asked my friends Mark Newstrom and Roger Everhart who do regular banding programs at Lowry Nature Center in Carver Park if they would be interested in banding at Mr. Neil's. Being banders, the answer is generally "yes". They were due to come Saturday morning and I had a somewhat sleepless night between my waning cold, thunder storms all night long, and just general excitement at banding. But the rains finished about 6 am followed by intense humidity.

Roger and Mark set up nets in three different areas: one near the feeders, one near a stand of pines that's full of birds, and one near a small pond. The banding conditions were not perfect. It was hot and humid (hello, it's October, it's supposed to be in the 50s in my neck of the woods), the winds were high (making it easier for birds to see the nets move), the falling leaves kept getting trapped in the nets. Above is a photo of Mark trying to get about 300 oak leaves out of the nets. They took two nets down and left one up by the feeding station.

Here is the first bird banded that day: a red-breasted nuthatch! Even though banding conditions weren't the best and with only one net, Mark and Roger managed to get band twenty-five birds (of five different species) before noon--and the feeder activity was unusually slow. Not bad!

We also got in one very feisty white-breasted nuthatch who did not care for my finger (or maybe just my green nail polish). When biting didn't seem to cause me any agony...

The nuthatch tried the clever and effective nip maneuver. Point taken, nuthatch, point taken.

At some point we had about four birds in the feeder nets at once. We would take the birds out of the nets, put them in a bag and then hang the bags on a string to await being processed. Since it was hot and humid, we had to move the bag hanging area to a more shady spot.

So, we hung them in a tree. Don't let his photo of a smiling Non Birding Bill with bags full of birds fool you. True to his identity in this blog, he showed little to no interest in the banding. He stopped out at one point and then went right back inside saying, "The excitement is too much, I need a nap."

I think the black-capped chickadees were the most common species banded that day. It seemed as soon as one got in the net and started protesting, three others would join in at the sound. Since there were so many, Mark and Roger let me band one:

Talk about pressure! I'm still learning how to do these little tiny songbirds, and I have to do it according to Roger and Mark's protocol.

They take more measurements than at Carpenter Nature Center. They do wing measurements, tail measurements, weight, and they measure individual feathers like primary wing feather 8 as well as trying to age and sex the birds. However, being just two guys, they do it quite quickly. I don't think any bird was in hand for more than five minutes.

They also blow on the body feathers to see if and where the bird is molting and to check for any fat stores the birds might have. Mark and Roger can predict when a flock of birds is about to leave an area based on their fat stores. Above is a goldfinch being blown on and if you look closely on the right of the exposed pink skin (which you can see through--that kind of grossed Lorraine out), you can see a bit of yellow--that is some fat this finch as stored up.

They ruffle the feathers on the head to see if there is any molting up there. Nice Eraserhead look. Don't worry about all the feather ruffling. One good rouse after they fly away puts all the feathers back into place.

We did have one goldfinch come in that appeared to show signs of either illness or not eating well. It was underweight to begin with and all the feathers on the head appeared appeared to have a crusty texture to them.

The bird's tail appears to be molting in late. It could be underweight with the molt or there could be something more serious going on. We're far from any rehabber and so we thought the best thing to do was let it loose and I will just stay on top of keeping the feeders clean and full of good food.

We did get one woodpecker in, this female downy woodpecker. There are usually dozens of woodpeckers at the feeders, but they were wary of the whole situation. We could hear the red-bellies calling from all corners of the yard, but none came to the feeding stations until late afternoon.

Mark and Roger showed me how dark the underside of her tail was--no doubt stained by tannins in tree bark. Woodpeckers use their stiff tails to prop themselves upright and white feathers are bound to get dirty. Based on this bird's molt pattern, Mark and Roger speculated that she was at least hatched in 2005. Pretty cool.

I was hoping we would get some of the fun birds (What am I saying! they're all fun! Let's say unusual) would come into the nets like tufted-titmice. But much like the red-bellied woodpeckers, these birds decided to avoid the feeding stations until late afternoon.

Purple finches managed to avoid the nets as well. The young of the family group are starting to show adult coloring--especially the males. More on these later.

Since it was so hot, Mark and Roger wrapped up the banding by noon--you don't want to risk birds sitting in the nets on a hot day for any extended period of time--bird safety is top priority. Later on Saturday, I was digiscoping and did find one or two of the banded birds. Here is one of the black-capped chickadees we banded. Perhaps this the one I banded? Even this morning, I saw a red-breasted nuthatch and goldfinch sporting the bands. It will be fun to watch which stick around this winter.

I'd like to thank Roger and Mark for taking the time out of their busy schedule to band birds. I hope they can come again. They are excited about the spring migration potential. Hopefully, next time it won't be 80 some degrees with high humidity.