much belated post

Well here it is 4th of July weekend. The birds just kept me much too busy to keep up the blog. I ended up banding ~40 birds or so this year and finding 27 nests. The sites I nest searched on held small numbers of birds and many didn't produce anything. Interesting and alarming! I began a pilot study looking at the effect of recreation on productivity. I actually got all but 1 male on the 2 sites banded and it will be interesting to see how many return to these or nearby sites next year. We ended up with >50% return rates across the banding sites! I will not be analyzing the results of the pilot data until later this fall. I am currently in the midst of another field season up in Missouri and planning my wedding later this fall!

first camera up today!

Well, these posts are few and far between because I am super busy. However, this afternoon got rained out so here I am. One of these days I upload some pictures, but not today. So far I have banded 29 gwcas, including 1 female. After 1 month of surveys, we are hovering between 40-50% return rate at most of our plots - very cool! We have even resighted 1 of 3 females banded in 2009 and she is the almost the same territory as last year. Absolutely amazing!

I have only found 6 nests thus far - the nest finding is slow going so far. I have found nests for every female I have seen with material except one yesterday who collected a bit of spider web and disappeared. I was not able to relocate her or her mate so I gave up. So good indication of just how late and slow this field season is progessing regarding the ladies. Another indication, not only do we continue to document new young males arriving each day, I resighted a 09 banded bird on Monday's survey for the first time - so even the older guys are just making it back. So lots of nest building is yet to come in what is shaping up to be a very odd year.

On Tues, I observed my first incubating female and this morning, successfully positioned a camera just above her nest. Mama accepted immediately and was eager to hop on her nest (4 eggs) as soon as I left. I was able to get a beautiful overhead shot so it will be good footage. I also took a short video with my still camera of a female building a nest a few days ago. It captures the 'wiggle dance' and she flies right past me as she leaves the nest. I will one day post that as well!

That's all folks!

slow progress

Birds are still being very slow to come in. In the last 2 weeks, I have gotten 14 banded. The females are here and somehow I have kept myself from getting wigged out that I have not even started territory mapping yet, let alone nest searching! I just started finding males at one site mid-week and I have not found more than 3 at my other site:( I will start nest searching on Tuesday!!!

gcwas back in town

Well after a long delay at border control, the golden-cheeked warblers successfully made it back to the good ole u.s. of a.! I detected the first birds in Austin this past Suday March 14. The latest date I have ever detected them! They are slowing trinkling in. I have completed 2 surveys, one on Monday and one today (Tues it rained). I resighted a couple birds on 1 site Mon but only had unbanded birds on the site I surveyed today. Most of the birds back so far have actually been banded - and even cooler - they are returning to within 100m of where they captured last year. Most are even on the same territory!!!!!! Can you imagine flying thousand of miles one way and spending many months chilling in the tropics and then flying thousands of miles back in the spring and landing in the SAME PLACE - absolutely amazing! Tomorrow will be my first day of banding...

back to attack

Well not to attack the birds, but attack all the recurring issues faced in an urban setting!

I am back in Austin as of several days ago. It is March 11 and we have not detected any GCWAs yet! They are LATE!!! There have been a couple reports in other areas, but this region is oddly silent. We are impatiently waiting...