it's hot and I'm tired

So as usual, I am way behind in posting - with good reason. I work every day trying to band birds and find nests, some days more successfully than others. Yesterday, a good day - 2 birds banded and 1 nest found. Today, a bad day - 0 banded and nests. Very little bird activity, but lots and lots of wind and heat and humidity:( But we have done really well this season despite the many challenges we have faced in beginning this new project. I did film a female warbler collecting material that I will hopefully post one day!

migrants

The golden-cheeked warblers have been here almost a week (first detected in Travis County on 3/4). Today I saw 2 Nashville Warblers, 2 Orange-crowned Warblers, and heard 1 Black-and-white Warbler.

Spring is here!

the birds are back in town

I returned 2/23 and had my crew ready that following Monday, but due to logistical delays we are just getting started. The 1st GCWA was reported in San Antonio on 3/2!!! The 1st in Austin was reported yesterday on 3/4. I took 1 tech out yesterday but we did not detect any GCWAs. Today started out very dismally and I expected the bad weather to preclude us from finding any. But luckily, we stuck it out long enough that the icky weather blew away, and we ended up hearing our 1st GCWA! We resighted him and I verified that he was banded with my naked eye (we did not even have our bins on us!). We went back to the car to retrieve our bins and refound and resighted the male, just in the nick of time since he disappeared soon after.

new project, same old birds!

Well, I am heading back into the field in 2 days!

I have a contract to study population viability of GCWAs on Balcones Canyonlands Preserve. It is my dream project and I am very excited about it. I will have my 1st crew working with me on GCWAs since 2006, and my largest crew in my several years of sueprvising. I have hired 6 techs, 3 of whom worked for me before on my masters project. An advantage of having good techs who become good friends:)

We will be super busy with all the facets of this multi-dimensional project, but it will also be super fun. I hope I remember to update all our adventures!