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...