Checking in on Lake Merced

This Thursday Pete and Linda (awesome birders and extraordinary banding assistants) and I went out birding at Lake Merced. Amongst the diverse avifauna we spotted the familiar faces, or legs rather, of our color-banded Nuttall's white-crowned sparrows.

It was much quieter with the passing of the breeding season but I was surprised to still hear some songs here and there from the local males. The songs were, however, noticeably shorter and often lacking the trill. I didn't get a good look at the singers but it's quite possible there were some hatch-year males testing out their vocal abilities for the first time. 

In total we were able to identify 10 different banded individuals. That's not to say there aren't more out there - we birded only a small segment of the lake! The breeding territories have all broken down and most of the white-crowns were spotted grouped together in foraging flocks. Below are some photos Pete was able to snap of some of the color bands:

I love this action shot:

This young bird puzzled us a little because of its plumage - it looks like it just fledged from the nest. Most of the hatch-years we saw had the same characteristic brown-and-tan crown but had gone through a molt to grow in smoother feathers. This guy/gal still has the characteristic "fluff" of a bird fresh out of the nest, which is odd given how late it is in the year.

Some other feathered friends spotted in the morning: 

 

Clark's Grebe

Fox Sparrow

Townsend's Warbler

The rest of Pete's photos from the morning can be found at his Flickr account!

And then happiness of seeing the banded white-crowns foraging about was topped off by this unexpected graduation present from Pete and Linda: 

A toast to the birds!

Birds of the Day - Monday April 27, 2015

Lake Merced

Sunrise is getting earlier and earlier. Today Charlie and I got started at 6:15am at Lake Merced. My goal was to catch two birds that have been eluding me this season. Unfortunately I think it just isn't going to happen. They respond well to the playback but the net locations just aren't ideal.

The perfect situation is to set up a net between two stands of tall vegetation so that the bird gets caught flying from one stand to the next. Unfortunately at Lake Merced there are isolated clumps of low brush separated by relatively large open spaces. The birds I've been trying to catch have hopped down by the speaker but remain protected in their bushes. Alas, these two continue to be elusive.

I did, however, catch three birds this morning. Two previously unbanded individuals and one recapture from last year.

The first one was a second-year male halfway grown into his black-and-white crown. He became "RS/RY" today:

Then there was this recapture male from 2014, "S/YOB":

And in the same net we caught a female who became "OGO/S":

Banding is in Full Swing!

The 2015 banding season is off and running! (flying?)

As of today (Saturday April 25, 2015) I've processed 41 birds this season. I'm using the word "processed" instead of "banded" because some of these birds have been recaptures from last year! It's been pretty exciting to see some of 2014's birds again - both for my study and for my own personal interest in seeing them survive another year.

One thing I've noticed this year is that the birds don't seem to be responding to the playback in the same way as last year. At first I was using the same set of songs I used last year but the birds seemed much more hesitant to charge the speaker. I would get some counter-singers and some full-fledged [bird humor] abandonment. I changed up my tactic and added site-specific songs to my iPod. These were much more successful!

Another interesting difference this year is the amount of females I've been catching along with the males. Last year yielded mostly male captures but this year I'm getting a lot more pairs co-defending their territory.

I also have to take a moment to thank Charlie, Erika, Pete and Linda - thank you so much for your help so far!!

Here are some birds from my four field sites this year:

San Francisco State University

Thanks to David Emmerson (aka Dad) for help on this first bird! He's been resited and recorded.

Not too many second year (brown-and-tan crowns) this year but this male is an avid singer from South campus:

Golden Gate Park

San Francisco Zoo

This bird is a recapture of the very first bird I caught at the Zoo. Dubbed very elaborately (sarcasm) "Zoo1" or "S/WYW", this male had a brown-and-tan crown when I first caught him - now he's all grown up!

Lake Merced

I cannot make any claim to these amazing photos. They're all from Pete - check out his other amazing bird photography (including many of Lake Merced's banded white-crowns) at his Flickr.

And my personal favorite:

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!