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...

goodbye Texas

I am late in writing this final entry to the 2009 season because my last week was very hectic trying to wrap up everything. I was out in the field every day until 7 or 8 at night. Friday, May 8 (my last day in Texas) I was in Bastrop where my dad and brother were picking up my vehicle before the big drive. I ended up missing a lunch and meeting in Austin I planned on going to, but I got my ride fixed!

I got one final morning of banding in on Thurs and banded 2 more bringing our grand total to 100!

Century bird was nicknamed stoplight (guess why):

We had a great turn-out to our mini-open house and everyone seemed to enjoy the show!

The final results for the season: 104 GCWAs banded (4 banded after I left), ~95 by me

32 nests found (as of when I left), 22 found by me (my best result since I was usually doing banding or point counts and I finished May 7)

2 rounds of point counts

I was presented this special cake at the May staff meeting:

I had a fabulous, exhilerating, and exhausting field season.

I headed north on I-35 Friday afternoon, spent the night in Ardmore, OK and arrived in KC the following afternoon. Randy and I enjoyed his birthday (our 1st together since I am always in field season mode).

Sunday I picked up a field assistant at the airport and thus began field season #2.

I miss my GCWAs already. Until next year...

wrapping up

Time is of the essence. I have been fighting time since I got here and I am now resigning myself to the fact that the end of this season (for me) is rapidly approaching. I have only 1 week! Today Lisa and I banded the remaining 3 GCWAs on Forest Ridge that we wanted to get so that plot is officially completed! Now if only the other plots were that complete. That makes 98 banded!

I found my 20th nest (on the road along Emma Long!) while I was walking between point counts. Things have been pretty slow since Monday when I found 2. We have bad weather all week, so I had to postpone point counts Tues and Wed, but yesterday and today were OK and now I am done with 2 of 5. I'm on track to complete those by early next week.

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!!!