Fall 2005 Notes and Highlights for September 27-October 2

• We banded 705 birds of 63 species this week, 19 of which were wood warblers.  Common Yellowthroat topped the warbler totals with 49 followed by Magnolia Warbler (21) and Yellow-rumped Warbler (20).  A newcomer for the fall season just last week, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, quickly secured first place this week for total captures with 70 banded.  Swainson's Thrush followed with 65, Gray Catbird came in third with 52, and American Goldfinch rounded out the top five with 41 banded.  Nine new species were added to the season  bringing our total to 97 species of birds banded since August of this year.

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Our busiest day this week, Wednesday September 28, was the start of our first Fall 2005 Bander Development workshop (for experienced banders).  Visiting banders Sandy Polcyn and Jennifer Maxwell (The Heard Natural Science Museum and Wildlife Sanctuary, Texas), Jennifer Hanley (Island Beach Banding Station, NJ), and Margaret Fritze (Featherbed Lane Banding Station, NJ), certainly got a crash course in banding at Powdermill, with 227 birds from 65 nets being processed by noon.

First Fall 2005 Bander Development Workshop Group (left to right):
Emma DeLeon (Powdermill Avian Research Center Student Intern), Felicity Newell (PARC Research and Banding Assistant), Bob Leberman (founder of the Powdermill bird banding program), Puppy (Mulvihill), Adrienne Leppold (PARC Bander-in-Charge), Jennifer Maxwell, Sandy Polcyn, David Norman (PARC Research Associate), Annie Lindsay (PARC Research and Banding Assistant), Jennifer Hanley, Margaret Fritze, and Bob Mulvihill (PARC Field Ornithology Projects Coordinator). . Powdermill's Mike Lanzone (PARC Assistant Coordinator), who also helped
run the workshop, was not available when the above photo was taken.

• Thankfully, the rest of the week wasn't quite as hectic as the first day!  With great bird diversity in our catch all week, we had plenty of opportunities for discussion with the workshoppers on molt, ageing and sexing, and general techniques in banding.  In the photo below, Bob Mulvihill (center with an Indigo Bunting), discusses and explains the complexities of the presupplemental, prebasic, and prealternate molts of INBU and how knowledge of the timing and extent of each molt translates into an ability to make precise and accurate age determinations for birds in any season.

• We thank Pam Ferkett, Brian Jones, and Dan Hinnebusch for their help this week with banding, and we can't thank our friend and ringing colleague from Great Britain, Dr. David Norman, enough for his help, for his encouragement, and for his intelligent contributions to the workshop proceedings.  Also, in the bits and pieces of spare time when we're not banding, David has been helping us to tackle data summarization and preliminary analysis needed for the eventual production of a molt monograph based on more than 5,000 molt records for some 80 species collected at Powdermill over the last 20 years.

• On Tuesday, September 27, one of the ten Common Yellowthroats we banded proved us wrong in thinking we had COYE basic plumage all figured out.  The male pictured below either had one of the most extensive black face masks we'd ever observed in a hatching year (HY) bird or one of the least extensive masks we'd ever seen on an after hatching year (AHY) adult.  While the adult males in the fall do show more pale tips to the black forehead feathers than in the spring, their black mask is usually much more extensive and well defined.   Nonetheless, its correct age (AHY) was initially suspected based on the absence of any wing molt limits and its rich reddish brown eye color, then confirmed by examination of its completely pneumatized skull.

• HY female warblers ordinarily are among the dullest individuals in sexually dimorphic species.  In fact, for the most part, they ARE the source of confusion in "confusing fall warblers!"  Even so, the HY female Black-throated Blue Warbler pictured below (left photo) was especially confusing with her very dull coloration, minimal facial pattern, and complete absence of any visible white at the base of its primaries (compare with the adult female pictured below right).

Similarly, an HY-F American Redstart banded on September 30 was unusual
in lacking any visible yellow at the bases of its flight feathers.

• On Wednesday, September 28, we banded our first Yellow-bellied Sapsucker of the fall, an HY of undetermined sex (still mostly in juvenal body plumage, which does not differ between the sexes).

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• On Thursday, September 29, we were paid a wonderful visit arranged by our friend Norman DeWind for residents from the Friendship Village Retirement Home in Pittsburgh.  In the photo below, Mike Lanzone talks about his ongoing, cutting edge bioacoustical research and talks with our visitors about how and why he records the flight calls and chip notes of some of the neotropical migratory songbirds banded at Powdermill.

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• We had a great variety of species during the Friendship Village visit, all of which were new for many of the visitors and three of which were new for the Fall 2005 banding season.

• Also on Thursday, we caught our ninth Bay-breasted Warbler for the season which turned out to be a handsome adult male still with extensive reddish brown (bay) color along its sides and flanks in its basic plumage.

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• We banded our second Hermit Thrush for the season on Friday, September 30.  The shortest distance and latest of the Catharus thrush migrants through Powdermill, HETHs have a distinctive habit in the field of repeatedly cocking their reddish brown tail up and then letting it fall slowly back down, as if under its own weight.  This seemingly very relaxed HY bird did this tail wagging repeatedly while it was being photographed.

• The weekend brought six more new species for the fall.  Our first Orange-crowned Warbler, the HY female pictured in the top photo below, was banded on Saturday, Oct. 1.  Like the probable western race Yellow Warbler banded last week (click here), this OCWA more closely resembled the Rocky Mountain and Great Basin race, Vermivora celata orestera, than the more commonly banded eastern V. c. celata race at Powdermill.

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As described in the Peterson Field Guide to Warblers by Jon Dunn and Kimball Garrett, orestera individuals, in general, tend to be more yellowish olive above and yellower below than celata.  HY birds in fall have grayish heads like nominate celata, but they show much more contrast between the grayish hood and a bright olive back and are brighter yellow below.  The bottom photo is of a hatch year female OCWA banded in September 2002 and provides a comparison between the more common and geographically widespread nominate race and the probable northwestern race orestera OCWA banded this week.  Both birds were judged to be female based on the lack of any orange feathers in their crown and by their comparatively short wing lengths (</=57mm).

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• Other new fall species banded over the weekend were Red-bellied Woodpecker (HY female; top photo) and both Black-billed (middle photo) and Yellow-billed Cuckoo (bottom photo).

In both cuckoo species, a yellow eye ring is a sign of juvenality, but in the BBCU the eye ring becomes bright red with age, while in the YBCU it changes to a drab olive-gray.

The feet of cuckoos, like those of woodpeckers and parrots, have a so-called zygodactyl arrangement of the toes, with the first and fourth toes pointing to the rear

But where the stout bill of woodpeckers is distinctly straight like a chisel, that of cuckoos is strongly decurved like forceps (the better to grab big hairy caterpillars with, presumably!)

In addition, the tongue, mouth lining, and throat of cuckoos is replete with jagged rear-pointing excrescences, which presumably serve in some way as another adaptation for their specialized feeding upon large hairy caterpillar prey.

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• The real excitement over the weekend came from the capture and banding of three raptors (two of them new for the current fall banding season).  They proved so popular (i.e., we took so many pictures of them!) that we had to devote an entire page just to them.

Last Updated on 10/06/05
By Adrienne Leppold and Robert Mulvihill