• The winter banding season here at Powdermill runs from December through February.  Thus, we concluded winter banding this Feb. with 240 new birds banded of 20 different species.  American Goldfinch came in first with 114 banded and our once long time leader in banding totals, the Dark-eyed Junco, came in a far second with only 42.  Our winter 2004-05 total is well below the 42 year average of 472 captures.  Only nine other winters have ever been lower.  Most of these occurred during the earlier years, when winterized housing was not available on the Reserve and banding occurred only sporadically.

• With such an uneventful winter banding season at Powdermill, the real highlights this winter have been our staff's various field expeditions.  Shortly after two very cold trips to Duluth, MN in December to band owls for the ongoing book project (see Past Pictorial Highlights from December and January), it was off to the tropical rain forests of Puerto Rico to assist with a study of Louisiana Waterthrush winter habitat use.


Dr. Len Reitsma, chairman of the biology department at Plymouth University in New Hampshire, contacted Bob Mulvihill and inquired if he had any available research assistants that could participate with his study of the wintering territories of the Louisiana Waterthrush for a short time this winter.  Dr. Reitsma has done extensive research of the wintering territories of Northern Waterthrush in Puerto Rico and was very familiar with the work done at Powdermill and in Costa Rica on the population biology of the Louisiana Waterthrush (LOWA), so this seemed the perfect opportunity for PARC to become involved with yet another international bird conservation project (and, of course, for myself and Felicity Newell, a part-time reserach assistant at Powdermill, to go to Puerto Rico for two weeks during the doldrums of the February winter in SW Pennsylvania).


View of El Yunque peak in the Caribbean National Rainforest
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• We arrived at the Sabana (USFS) Field Station just outside the Caribbean National Forest on January 30 and headed out the very next morning to look for LOWA's.  We were working with Mike Hollingsworth, a recent graduate of Plymoth University and one of Dr. Reitsma's students, who had arrived in early January and already had four birds banded and marked with radio transmitters.  In addition to finding and recording the locations of those birds already marked, we set up nets to catch additional birds that were seen along the stream and thought to be on territory.

 

 
 





Adrienne and Mike setting up a mist net to catch a Louisiana Waterthrush

• Once in hand, the birds were banded wih a unique color combination, a USFWS aluminum band, measurements were taken, a small amount of blood was drawn for sexing purposes, and all birds were harnessed with radio transmitters.  We then collected GPS data points, marking the bird's location at five minute intervals, in order to study their movements and map their territories.  Of particular interest will be their habitat use offstream.  In the photos below, Mike and Felicity finish processing a bird and a Louisiana Waterthrush is fitted with a radio transmitter, the battery and whip antenna are visible in the picture on the right.

• Birds were found on both the large rivers and small side streams, but the birds on the small streams occupied much smaller territories.  Similarly to what Bob Mulvihill experienced while studying LOWA's in Costa Rica, flora aside, it was amazing just how comparable the small streams in Puerto Rico and the popular nesting streams for LOWA's here in PA, really are.  The photo on the left is one of the study streams in Puerto Rico and the photo on the right is of Powdermill Run.

• In addition to, of course, Dr. Len Reitsma and Mike, we would like to thank the staff of the USFS Sabana Field Research Station for welcoming us openly and, in particular, Javier Mercado, an avian biologist at the station, for taking so much time to share the birds of Puerto Rico with us.  The photo collage below, from left to right, shows: a rock outcrop on El Yunque peak in the rainforest, orchid species, giant tree snail, Black-faced Grassquit Nest, and a Greater Antillean Grackle.

Collage photos by Felicity Newell

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• Lastly, Annie Lindsay is one of Powdermill's most faithful volunteers, spending her summers and school breaks here at Powdermill helping out with varied projects, including the study of the Louisiana Waterthrush breeding biology on local streams.  She graduated from Grove City College last spring with a B.S. in biology and was hired this summer as the Rea Intern in Applied Ecology, working near Powdermill to "ground truth" GIS-generated habitat models being used in connection with the 2nd PA Breeding Bird Atlas.

Annie holding a LOWA nestling

• Last fall, Annie left Powdermill for a position operating a winter MAPS banding station (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship) at Fort Benning, Columbus, GA.  Not surprisingly, she has served as an excellent ambassador for the quality of training and skilled banding that the Powdermill program always strives to do.  While we hope to see her back at Powdermill soon, we wish her luck in her future endeavors assisting with a migration banding project off the coast of Mississippi and, following that, a study of the breeding biology of Dark-eyed Juncos at Moutnian Lake Biological Station in Virginia.  Annie's sent us these photos of some of the birds she's had the opportunity to band/handle this winter in Georgia.

Bachman's Sparrow

Northern Bobwhite

Henslow's Sparrow

Red-headed Woodpecker

Last Updated on 03/19/05
By Adrienne J. Leppold