• August 2-4, 2002:  The fall 2002 banding season began toward the end of what may well have been one of the hottest weeks so far this year.  Consequently, the combined banding effort over the course of three days was comparatively light (just  325 net hours).  Still, we got off to a good start, especially in terms of variety, banding  96 birds (~30 birds/100 net hours) of  34 species (plus 14 recaptures).

 
• Among the first highlights for fall 2002 was the banding of a hatching year (HY) female Cerulean Warbler, whose image now replaces that of the male Yellow Warbler on our former Home page.  When it comes to challenging fellow birders and banders, CERWs in this plumage are our "fooler" of choice (several very experienced colleagues--you know who you are!--have been stumped by this one)!

• Our first three official fall banding days produced our first captures since spring of four species:  an adult male Traill's (probably Willow) Flycatcher (still with a small cloacal protuberance, which is a seasonal swelling of the cloaca characteristic of breeding males of many songbird species); a Swainson's Thrush (an after second year, ASY, male in the very early stages of its prebasic molt, having just shed primary number 1, and also still showing a small cloacal protuberance); three Magnolia Warblers (two HY birds and an ASY female with a refeathering brood patch and also in the very early stages of her prebasic molt);  finally, two Northern Waterthrushes (an after hatching year, AHY, bird and the HY bird pictured below, both of which had already completed their prebasic molt).  Of these four species, only MAWA and TRFL are known to nest in the immediate vicinity of Powdermill.

• We banded one juvenile Downy Woodpecker and recaptured another this week.  Both were still entirely in their juvenal body plumage, but one had a bright red juvenal crown patch, while the other's was entirely black (photo below).  Some literature (but see Pyle 1997, Identification Guide to North American Birds, Slate Creek Press, Bolinas, CA) will suggest that both male and female DOWO juveniles have a red juvenal crown, but we have determined through dozens of recaptures that DOWOs with an extensively red juvenal crown are, in fact, males, while those with a black, or mostly black,  juvenal crown are young females (although we handle many fewer, the same apparently is true of Hairy Woodpeckers).  In addition to information that we obtain from recaptures,  we sometimes will band DOWOs for which both the juvenal crown color and the color of incoming nuchal feathers can be simultaneously recorded.  Interestingly, we have many more recapture records of birds originally banded with a red juvenal crown and subsequently found molting in the red nuchal patch characteristic of males.  Our many fewer recaptures of  immature DOWOs originally banded with a black juvenal crown presumably reflect farther dispersal by females away from their natal area.  When there is a difference between the sexes, longer natal dispersal by females is the pattern seen in most species of  birds.