Ready for the 2015 Field Season!

It's nearly spring time again - the temperatures haven't quite risen but the birds have certainly started singing. All over San Francisco I can hear the predictable yet varied song of the white-crowned sparrow. They're beginning to carve out their territories and that's great news for me because it means they are once again responsive to target netting.

After the long gap between last year's field season I received a couple emails today that reenergized me for this season:

The first was permission from the City of Berkeley to be able to band birds at Cesar Chavez Park:

There's only a few males there but given the prevalence of blood parasites from last year, I'm hopeful about the East Bay birds.

The second was an email from Jim, a local bird watcher and photographer, who saw several of my birds foraging around Lake Merced! It's so great to know these individuals have made it through another year - hopefully I'll recapture them this year and have some "long term" data. (I put this in quotation marks because a two-season study is by no means long term but it's all relative.)

I'll have more updates as the banding gets going and many more photos to share. Stay tuned!