Pictorial_Highlights_102327

POWDERMILL NATURE RESERVE
PICTORIAL HIGHLIGHTS
October 23-27, 2002

Saturday-Sunday, October 26-27, 2002: Mostly cloudy and breezy, with intermittent light rain on Saturday (only 26 nets operated); similar on Sunday, but without rain (49 nets used). We thank Carole Shanahan for helping with the banding on Saturday; also, Mary Helen Chiodo and a good firend and colleague, Dr. Terry Master, Associate Professor of Biology at East Stroudsburg University, and his wife, Sally, for their help on Sunday. Sunday was a shortened banding day so that we could all attend Terry's wonderful slide lecture program at our nature center on the biodiversity of Kenya and Tanzania that he has encountered during eight separate wildlife tours he has led there.

After a very good start to the banding week (276 birds; 53/100 net hours on Wednesday), the bird activity in our banding area slowed day by day, leading to a low for the week of just 50 birds banded (20/100 net hours) on Sunday. The fall migration of birds may not have been at its peak at Powdermill this weekend, but the show of fall colors probably was!

Although banding totals were comparatively low this weekend, each of the two days produced new species for our fall banding list. On Saturday, an adult female Eastern Bluebird was our 100th species, and a bird (guess which kind before you scroll down) with the intricate back feathering pictured below was our 101st.

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It was a very brightly colored adult female
Red-winged Blackbird

On Sunday we banded another new species (guess again!), also one with very intricate back plumage...

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It was a Common Snipe

Friday, October 25, 2002: Mostly cloudy, slightly breezy and cool. We operated 46 mist nets from 7:00am-11:30am. We thank Carroll Labarthe for helping with the banding today.

A total of 89 birds of 20 species was banded today, but, with no new species banded, we still have not yet cracked the 100 species barrier (our 100th species had been banded by the end of September last fall).

With four more banded today, our current fall total for Winter Wren (63 banded) is a new record for Powdermill. This is one of very few species, however, that is being banded in well above average numbers this fall. We are struck, in particular, by the very low numbers of Yellow-rumped (Myrtle) Warblers at our station this fall. Only 70 MYWAs have been banded thus far (and we are well past what ordinarily would be their peak passage date here), compared to a long-term fall average of >300.

Some of the visiting contingent of Russian mammalogists and ecologists took advantage of their last opportunity to observe some more North American birds in the hand before leaving Powdermill to return home today. Boris Sheftel (top photo) and Nikolai Shchipanov (middle photo) took turns holding a hatching year male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (bottom photo; the bird is a male based on the incoming red throat feathers). It was our second YBSA for the fall, but a first (hand) experience for both of them (and Boris returns home with the claw and peck marks to prove it!).

Thursday, October 24, 2002:Mostly cloudy, very cool, and breezy throughout the day. Because of the breezy conditions, we reduced our banding effort today compared to yesterday. Mary Helen Chiodo, Adrienne Leppold, and Darlene Madarish all helped with the banding today. We are very glad to welcome Adrienne back from six months spent helping with important monitoring studies of murres, puffins, and other cliff-nesting seabirds on the Alaskan Peninsula.

We banded 102 birds today, and despite catching no Cedar Waxwings today (76 were banded yesterday), our overall capture rate was similar to yesterday. Most numerous were Dark-eyed Juncos, today's total of 22 (along with yesterday's 14) representing the first real push of fall migrants of this species at Powdermill. As we have discussed on our web pages before, the migratory northern subspecies of junco (Junco hyemalis hyemalis and J. h. cismontanus) differ from our resident local breeding race, J. h. carolinensis, in, among other things, bill color. Northern "Slate-colored" Dark-eyed Juncos generally have a pinkish bill color (often with a contrasting dark tip; lower photo), while the southern Appalachian race (the so-called Carolina Junco) is characterized by a uniformly bluish horn colored bill (upper photo).

Banding records for wrens of two species were noteworthy today: first, we banded four Winter Wrens, bringing our current fall total to 59, which already ties the record fall total set last year; second, we banded our fourth Marsh Wren of the season. We have banded a total of 80 MARWs in fall, and only two have been banded on a date later than today's bird (the latest on 10/31/79). Like a few other species (e.g., Orange-crowned and Cerulean warblers), we always seem to be compelled to take pictures of each and every Marsh Wren we catch! So, even though we've posted several photos of the species before, here's one more!

Wednesday, October 23, 2002:Calm, mostly cloudy, and cool throughout the day. We operated 59 nets from 7:00 until about 4:00pm (525 net hours--our second largest daily banding effort thus far this season). Darlene Madarish helped with the banding today, and we also received additional assistance from some of the Russian scientists--Boris Sheftel, Igor Yu Popov, and Tatiana Demidova (all from the Severtzov Institute of Ecology and Evolution)--who are staying over at Powdermill after attending the recent international colloquium here on the biology of shrews.

We banded 276 birds (our highest daily total so far this fall), led by 76 Cedar Waxwings (our first big, i.e., double-digit, daily catch of this species). Next most commonly banded birds were White-throated Sparrow (39), American Goldfinch (27), and Song Sparrow (24). Other good totals for the day included ten Hermit Thrushes and nine Winter Wrens (we have now moved well ahead of the pace leading to last fall's record catch of 59 WIWRs--this fall's WIWR total now stands at 55).

One of our 16 recaptures today was very interesting. We banded an adult male Orange-crowned Warbler #2240-96888 on 10/9, when it had no visible fat deposits and weighed 8.6 grams; when recaptured for the first time on 10/20, it had moved into our maximum "3" fat score category and weighed 9.9g; at today's handling it had fattened further still, weighing in at an even 11.0g. Thus, over the course of a comparatively leisurely two-week stopover, this bird has gained 2.4g (about 30% of its lean body mass) in stored fat for continuing its southward migration.

Among the 76 Cedar Waxwings banded today were 64 hatching year (HY) birds, and several of these were still in full juvenal plumage. Among the 64 HY birds, 13 (20%) exhibited the orange variant tail band coloration. As we discussed here before, this occurs when nestling CEDWs are fed quantities of honeysuckle berries containing the red pigment rhodoxanthin while their juvenal tail feathers are forming. At least in our area, the fruits of these honeysuckles are available only through late summer, so adult CEDWs, which molt their tail feathers much later in the fall, almost never show this variation. Even in an orange tail banded juvenile, if a rectrix is lost accidentally and replaced when the bird is no longer feeding on (or being fed) the honeysuckle fruits, the replacement feather will have the normal yellow coloration. In one of the HY CEDWs banded today (photo below) there was a single yellow-tipped replacement rectrix which stood out (in both color and length) from the surrounding orange-tipped juvenal rectrices.

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