Once again, we banded a fairly consistent number of birds as compared with the last few weeks and had the expected species diversity for this time of year.  After having had such a productive summer and early fall banding season, however, we have been a little surprised at the sluggish pace of the late fall period, a time of year that usually produces our busiest banding days of the year.   However, despite the somewhat disappointing numbers, we still had a couple of highlights when we banded two new species for the fall season this week--our first American Tree Sparrow and Northern Saw-whet Owl.  American Goldfinch came in first this week (112 banded), and Dark-eyed Junco came in at a close second (105).  White-throated Sparrow (62) and Song Sparrow (58) were the next highest.

We thank Pam Ferkett, Randi Gerrish, Brian Jones, Carroll Labarthe, Cokie Lindsay, Molly McDermott, Felicity Newell, and Matt Shumar for their help this week with banding.

• We banded our first American Tree Sparrow Tuesday, October 26th with a bit of surprise and hesitation.  Is winter closer than we think?!  A somewhat early sign of the oncoming winter season considering only eight other times in the past 43 years have we ever caught our first fall Tree Sparrow before November (the earliest was October 20th, 1963).

• Of the 162 birds banded on Wednesday, October 11th, was our second American Woodcock this fall.  This hatching year male pictured below.

• We also banded our third Sharp-shinned Hawk for the fall on Wednesday, a hatching year male.  Males of this species are much smaller than females (a phenomenon called reversed size dimorphism), which can weigh twice as much.  At 100.5 grams, the male SSHA shown here being weighed was about average for a bird with no visible fat deposits (not much heavier than a moderately fat Blue Jay and much lighter than a Belted Kingfisher!)  Although superficially very similar in plumage to the Cooper's Hawk, the smallest eastern COHA (male) still would weigh about twice as much as the largest SSHA (female).

• The last total lunar eclipse of 2004 occurred on Wednesday night, and we watched it from beginning (9:14pm EST) to end (12:54am EST) at Powdermill.  The photos below were taken just before, and during the first half of the eclipse.

• Although we do have an interest and appreciation for astronomy,  we'll admit it isn't quite strong enough to have kept us up until almost 1:00am on a morning when we'd be up opening nets just five hours later for normal banding operations.  We did have an ulterior motive!  We were out for Northern Saw-whet Owls, and we netted our first one of the season just as the eclipse was beginning (this is the same bird pictured in last week's highlights perched on a pumpkin stem!)

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• The warm fall days we had this week stimulated another natural phenomenon, a not too uncommon sight for many people throughout North America this time of year!

• These ladybugs, an introduced Asian species of ladybird beetle brought to the U.S. in the early 1900's to help control aphid populations, are merely seeking warm places for their winter hibernation.  This phenomenon occurs again in the spring when the ladybugs come out of hibernation and begin to disperse.

• We netted two Rusty Blackbirds on Thursday, October 28th, a hatching year and an after hatching year male.  Both were aged by the degree of skull pneumatization, because HY RUBLs, as in most blackbird species can have a complete first prebasic molt.  As we often do, we took advantage of the chance to directly compare these two males of known age, hoping to discover or reaffirm other, potentially reliable criteria for separating the age classes when skull pneumatization (probably completed in HY birds before the end of winter) no longer is useful in this regard.

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The adult (on the right) clearly had a much darker overall head coloration, but we know that there is much individual variation in this that is not necessarily age-related.  Subtle eye color differences, however, only discernable in very good light, probably are age-related.  The HY bird (on the left) had a faint grayish cast to its eye that the adult lacked.  It is unlikely, though, that this difference would persist beyond the time of year when skull condition is still a reliable indicator of age.

• Although very subtle, differences in the underwing plumage of HY/SY and AHY/ASY RUBLs does have the potential of extending the period of time when the two age classes can be distinguished.   Many HY and SY blackbirds do retain some juvenal underwing coverts following a nearly complete first prebasic molt.  While these stand out conspicuously in males of some species, like Brown-headed Cowbird, they do not in the case of females and some other species of blackbirds.  It is only because we had the opportunity to directly compare these two known age male RUBLs that we could see a subtle difference in underwing coverts between them.  The retained juvenal underwing coverts of the HY bird on the left lack the dark iridescence of the same coverts in the adult bird, a difference that would be very difficult to be confident about in the absence of a direct comparison.

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• Finally, we end this week's highlights with one of the 105 Dark-eyed Juncos banded.  Of the many races of juncos (12 subspecies are listed in Pyle 1997), four have been captured here at Powdermill.  Only a small number have ever been identified unambiguously as the western race, Junco hyemalis oreganus, formerly recognized as being a different species, the Oregon Junco.  Naturally,  the majority of juncos banded at Powdermill belong to the nominate eastern race, Junco hyemalis hyemalis.  Two other races are regularly, and sometimes commonly encountered at Powdermill: the local, southern Appalachian breeding race, Junco hyemalis carolinensis (identified by its bluer than pink bill and, on average, larger size), and a northwestern intergrade form, so-called Junco hyemalis cismontanus.  Adult male J.h. cismontanus, like the one in the pictures below, are identified by their dark, well-defined hood, which markedly contrasts with their back and side plumage.  Note, however, that in cismontanus males, the sides are light gray in color, not light reddish brown as in an "Oregon" Junco.

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Last Updated on 11/06/04
By Adrienne J. Leppold
and Robert S. Mulvihill