Honing Banding Skills

My project is officially in the "data processing" and not the "data collecting" phase. I'm reading a lot of primary literature, analyzing recorded songs, and preparing my thesis for defense. These are all extremely important aspects of a scientific project but I have to admit, they're not as enjoyable as being out in the field collecting the data and working with the birds first-hand.

Luckily I still have the opportunity to get outside banding birds as a volunteer with the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory. Since beginning as a "Predator Patroller" (keeping an eye out for foxes, feral cats, etc.) there nearly two years ago now I've gained skills first as an "Extractor" (able to get birds out of nets) and finally as a full fledged bander (code name E7!) 

Fall migration is in full swing and we've been busy the past few weeks.This past Sunday we had so many birds come in I didn't leave the banding table once! It was a great day to practice my skills identifying, quantifying fat, determining degrees of skull ossification, and aging different species of birds. 

Here's just a small subset of the birds that came through. 

A really tough Townsend's warbler.

Fox sparrow. I am quite partial to these birds - These were some of the first birds I learned how to handle. They also kick up leaves like crazy while forraging. Reminds me of how a dog kicks up grass with its back legs after it poops.

Lincoln sparrow - These have just a smooth clean look about them. They're a treat to see up close.

Black phoebe. These birds are not caught too often - they're extremely agile flyers and usually dodge the nets. 

Bushtit. These birds can be sexed by eye color! A light eye, like this lady here, indicates she's a female. Bushtits are some of the tiniest birds we catch but also the spunkiest. They travel in flocks, constantly twittering back and forth to each other. 

Ok I'm not going to label this one. I would hope you could recognize it by now ;)

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!

Western Bird Banding Association 2014 Meeting

This past weekend Allison Nelson (remember her thrush project??) and I road tripped up to Humboldt, CA to share our research at the 2014 Meeting of the Western Bird Banding Association (WBBA.)

The conference spanned from September 18-21 and saying it was bird-heavy is an understatement! We were there with representatives from all of the major banding stations up and down the West Coast and even inland into the Southern US a bit (a couple Arizona and New Mexico folks were in attendance.)

Both HBBO and WBBA use a bird in their logo that should be familiar to you at this point!

Most of the conference took place at the Humboldt Bay Bird Observatory (HBBO) on the Humboldt Bay Wildlife Refuge:

Friday

After a nice meet-and-greet dinner Thursday night the conference kicked off bright and early with a morning of banding at HBBO. Even though most of us in attendance were experienced bird banders, it's always interesting to watch how other stations operate. For example, at the station I work at (Coyote Creek) we score fat on a 0-7 scale, 0 being none and 7 being 'very excessive.' HBBO uses a 'none-full' scale - the bird either had no fat, half fat, or full fat.

Even though we have different methodologies we share many of the same species. Below are two yellow warblers - one from HBBO (top) and one from Coyote Creek (bottom):

There's only so many people that can pack into a banding station so some of us departed for a guided walk of the local dunes. The Lanphere Dunes on the Humboldt Bay Wildlife Refuge contain some of the most eerie and beautiful habitat I've ever seen.

Animal tracks were very easy to spot in the wet sand. This skunk left his footprints behind:

And of course:

This was a bird conference after all!

In the afternoon there were a series of workshops, including one led by Allison on bleeding techniques and geolocators.

One helpful workshop was on bird first aid. It is very rare but if we do come across an injured bird – either as a result of netting or if it had a previous injury – it is our responsibility as banders and conservationists to do all that is in our power to help that bird. In this workshop we learned how to splint a broken leg, how to calm a stressed bird, and how to tend to a dislocated limb. Obviously we didn’t have any birds to work with so we splinted broken reeds for practice.

Friday culminated with a social and a dinner followed by a bluegrass concert featuring Arcata locals, the Compost Mountain Boys:

Saturday

Saturday was the presentation and poster day. The day was packed with presentations on everything from nesting habits, molt patterns, and aging techniques of birds from Canada to South America.

Allison gave a great update on her hermit thrush geolocator project. Two years ago she put geolocators on birds in both the South and North Bay. Last year, some of those birds were recaptured and their geolocators removed. Turns out the South Bay birds fly further north and travel faster than the hermit thrushes in the North Bay. It’s right around the time of year that we will be seeing the hermit thrushes migrate back in and we’re hoping to round up the remaining geolocators.

On Saturday evening there was a social and poster session. Only three of us had posters so we certainly got a bit of foot traffic! Though my project is still in the early stage and there aren’t too many conclusions to draw just yet, I had a great time discussing my methodology and initial data analysis.

C.J. Ralph, head of the HBBO and chair of the conference, stopped by for an engaging explanation:

Sunday

Sunday morning Allison went on a birding tour in the Humboldt County mountains while I spent some time with our host's chickens:

Before hitting the road for our 5 hour drive home we stopped by downtown Arcata to check out the North Country Fair:

Arcata is just quirky like that.

All in all it was a successful and informative trip. Allison was even elected and unanimously approved to the HBBO board! Next year's WBBA meeting will be hosted by the Vancouver Avian Research Centre so we'll be heading north of the border!