As of January 1, all birds have a birthday. It is a good time to advance the bird timeline because for some birds it becomes harder to tell if a bird was born in the last nesting season. After the new year, all birds are at least 2 years old and are designated "after hatch year". If I can still tell if a bird was born last year, it is recorded as a "second-year bird" and that is still "after hatch year" but a more specific age. This catbird still had a pink tongue so it was noted as second year.
photo by Nancy Price
We caught a second Gray Catbird. This one had a black tongue and there is no way to tell if it was born last year or before that, so it was recorded as an after hatch year bird.
We watched the Osprey pair on their nest. There will be eggs soon. They both had a nice fish dinner.
We noted quite a few species on the property. There is now a page on this blog where you can go to see the species totals for the year. Each one will be dated with the first seen date and whether it has been banded. Thanks to Nancy Price's efforts the sightings during banding sessions will be tracked on eBird. There is a Possum Long Banding Station location. Having the data on eBird will allow us to follow arrivals and departures and to create seasonal graphs as time goes on and we get more data. Thank you Nancy Price! We will be posting directions on how to view data on eBird at a later time.
We were encouraged to see a few warblers today including Palm, Yellow-rumped, and Prairie. There were quite a few Blue-gray Gnatcatchers around and we were able to entice one into the net.
Photo by Pat Marshall
I had never banded a gnatcatcher before. It was banded with the smallest band and weighed only 4 grams! I knew they were tiny but this is amazing.
Photo by Nancy Price
Also hanging around was an Eastern Phoebe. It didn't quite get that it had to go into the net in order to be banded. It chose to perch on the net pole. Actually, maybe it did know what it was doing!
Almost at the end of our banding day we got a Yellow-rumped Warbler in a net. It was fun to see a "myrtle" subspecies in hand. It was a male just getting in some black around the face. The large black centers in the feathers below the yellow rump indicate that it is an adult male.
I am very pleased to share that the Board of Audubon of Martin County (AOMC) has voted funds such that we will be getting 3 new nets. We are grateful to Pat & Bruce Marshall who have donated funds to AOMC make this possible. As more donations arrive, we will be growing a bit more.
Next banding session will be held January 22, 2013. Many thanks to all volunteers who made this session possible.
Yay! Birds hitting nets! You think BGGN are small, wait until your first Ruby-crowned Kinglet!
ReplyDeleteI have had Eastern Phoebes actually sit on the tops of our nets! Excellent balancers on anything.