I beat myself again

I had a very busy today. After changing out a battery and SD card at one nest camera, I began hauling a battery out to the further nest on Forest Ridge. En route, I found 3!!! nests - 1 building and 2 with kiddoes. I hauled that battery out and turned right around and dragged down a full camera set up and put a camera on the furthest nest (easy to climb). So 3 nests in under 1 hour! Then I went over to another site, St Edwards, that I haven't been to in a couple weeks and found 1 more nest there. So 4 total. I wanted to set up another camera but after hauling the 6 ft ladder to my car at 6:00 pm, I didn't have the energy to go home, retrieve a set up and drag all that equipment plus the ladder out to the nest. Plus I had to go buy more batteries - and while the 30 lb batteries are considerably better than the ones I used to haul (~70 lb), it is still tiring. Unfortunately that adds to the to-do list for tomorrow. I have now found 16 nests and have cameras on 5.

all in a days work

Yesterday was mostly a bust due to rain almost the entire day. Last night when I did my last weather check it was 100% chance of rain again for today, so I slept in, which was great, except the rain never materialized (or if it did, it was overnight). Chance of rain was 10% for the rest of the day!

So I got a late start - I didn't arrive to my plot until 10:00. The birds were singing like crazy today - a great day to be tracking birds. I monitored the 2 nests I found at 3M last week - 1 is active and the other, well ? I found another seemingly complete nest only 50 m from the ? nest and no female on either. BUT a female foraging nearby the entire time I was in the area (>40 mins) and 2 males were singing nearby. So I don't know what is going on there. After I gave up trying, I stumbled upon another nest. I waited 20 mins to determine if the nest was active, and as I was finally walking away sullenly, I saw a female fly in and add material! After that, I found 2 more nests with nestlings.

FINALLY! I beat myself finally! This is my 5th season and my first 4-nest day. Many 3 nests days, but never more. So this is me, tooting my own horn, for finally beating myself. I may have even bested that, but I had to set up a camera at the nest with the incubating girl mentioned earlier and 1 of the ones found today with nestlings. All of that hauling and moving equipment and waiting around watching the adults take time so I ended up in the field til 7:00. But 4 nests and 2 cameras make it all worth it.

catch of the day

Yesterday, while banding with a couple staff biologists, this beautiful adult sharp-shinned hawk flew into the net. Luckily no warblers were harmed in the meantime, because no male came in and a female was hanging out in the area but not that close to the net. This hawk does prey on small songbirds, and very well may have been responding to the tape recording we were playing of golden-cheeked warbler. I extracted it and left it go - both the bird and net unharmed!!!

what a beauty

adult male (>2 years old)

slow down

Things are finally starting to slow down, banding-wise. With the addition of 2 more males, I hit 82 today! But alas the majority of birds on the 100 acre plots are finally banded, and the remaining unbanded are not cooperative. We may hit 100 yet, but we may not. I am glad though that things are slowing down because I would like to refocus the majorit of my remaining time to resighting banded birds and locating nests. Time in this very abbreviated field season is running low and I have only located 5 nests thus far. Tomorrow will mark my first day devoted to surveying territories and I am quite hopeful for >1 nest. I did get the first camera up on a nest a few days ago and will do my battery change tomorrow. She was sitting on 4 eggs!

69 and counting

Today was my 1st day to band since last Thursday. I did point counts Fri and Sat morning and Sun and Mon were too windy for banding. That the first break I've had, not a day off mind you, just a break from banding. Today was a record low in the 30s so we got a late start. Despite only banding for 3 hours, we got 3 males and 1 more female banded. Then I went over to another site to resight banded birds and map territories and located a nest. So 4 birds and my 4th nest today, and perfect weather after 10:00 - all in all a great day!

so many birds, so little time

In just 2 1/2 weeks, we have now banded 63 warblers. Mark and I banded 10 TODAY! We finally caught 2 females, 1 today and 1 a couple days ago.

The one downside to all this banding is a lack of time to nest search. I did find 1 nest last weekend. I found it just looking around and confirmed the female adding material the next day. I spent yesterday afternoon on a couple sites with builing females, but I didn't see any action until after 5:30!!! Another hour spent and still hadn't refound the female and my feet and knees were getting quite achy so I gave up at 6:30. Today I was banding until 6:30 so again, no time. I plan on searching tomorrow - in the 25+ mph winds...

I'm missing key nest searching days:( but catching lots of birds:)