![]() HOME: www.hiltonpond.org |
|||
THIS WEEK at HILTON POND
15-21 June 2005
Installment #274---Visitor #
(Back to Preceding Week; on to Next Week)
|
MORE WANDERING FINCHES It was a very interesting week for finches at Hilton Pond Center. First we caught our oldest-ever House Finch and a female American Goldfinch in breeding condition (details on both at bottom of page). Then we got some snail-mail with a return address of "Bird Banding Laboratory, Laurel MD." It's always exciting when an envelope arrives from the BBL because it typically contains a folded piece of paper bearing green lines and with little holes along the edge that indicate it's a sprocket-fed computer printout. After-second-year Male Purple Finch All maps, text & photos © Hilton Pond Center Through this week we've banded 46,162 birds at Hilton Pond Center--the cumulative result of countless hours of manning mist nets and running a variety of traps over the past 24 years. Some of these banded birds have been year-round residents we recaptured again and again, some are migrants that returned and were recaptured in later years, but the vast majority of birds we handle are released and fly away, never to be seen again locally. Of those in the latter group, a select few show up somewhere else and are either recaptured by another bander or, more often, suffer the fate of flying into a picture window or being knocked down and dragged in by a free-roaming cat.
Of those 46,000-plus birds banded since 1982 at Hilton Pond Center, only 48 had been reported through 29 June 2005 as found dead or recaptured and released outside York County, South Carolina. This is an extremely low rate of only about 0.1%. By far the most commonly encountered species have been House Finches (14) and Purple Finches (13)--not surprising since they are the two species most commonly banded at the Center. (Click HERE to open map in separate browser window for easier comparison to table below) The map above shows our 11 Purple Finches for which the Bird Banding Lab has confirmed foreign recaptures or recoveries--including #47 and #48 that we received word on this week. (Records appear to have been lost for two other PUFIs--#34 and #37--that we understand were reported to the BBL but for which we have no encounter data.) Our confirmed Purple Finch foreign encounters include birds at the following locations:
With one notable exception--the Laona WI bird, for which we have no explanation--it seems Purple Finches that winter at Hilton Pond are from populations that breed in New England and eastern Canada. All 11 birds for which we have confirmed records were banded January through late March, and--execpt for #15--all were encountered up north during what likely is peak breeding season (late April through late June). Two birds (#42 and #44) were hand-caught after apparently colliding with some stationary object; they were released alive and were potentially capable of returning to Hilton Pond. Several were getting on in years, especially #13 (an after-6th-year female when found dead) and #42 (an after-5th-year bird when released). For us, however, the most remarkable Purple Finch on this list is #20, banded during its second year here in York (near the southern edge of the species' winter range) and recovered in its fourth year nearly 1,700 miles away in Newfoundland (on the very northern limit of its breeding range). Talk about long-distance migration! The two newest birds on the list (#47 and #48) were banded just two weeks apart at Hilton Pond Center in 2004 and found dead about three weeks apart at Lewis NY (on the Vermont border) and at St. Donat (just into Quebec from the continental U.S.). We're quite certain the latter bird must have flown directly over the new home of our lifelong friend Dr. Jim Shuman, an education professor at St. Lawrence University who just moved with wife Laurie into a cottage on the seaway near Canton NY and a little south of St. Donat. Having ourselves flown into the little airport at Ogdensburg NY on a trip to visit with Jim (see aerial photo below left), we know just how far it is from York SC to upstate New York and southern Canada, All maps, text & photos © Hilton Pond Center NOTE: Details about the above birds and others banded at Hilton Pond Center and found elsewhere are at Foreign Encounters. But don't forget to scroll down for more info about the old House Finch and breeding American Goldfinch.
Comments or questions about this week's installment? "This Week at Hilton Pond" is written & photographed You may wish to consult our Index of all nature topics covered since February 2000. You can also use the on-line Search Engine at the bottom of this page. For a free, non-fattening, on-line subscription to "This Week at Hilton Pond," just send us an E-mail with SUBSCRIBE in the Subject line. Please be sure to configure your spam filter to accept E-mails from hiltonpond.org.
|
Make direct donations on-line through
Network for Good: |
|
LIKE TO SHOP ON-LINE?
Donate a portion of your purchase price from 500+ top on-line stores via iGive: |
|
Use your PayPal account
to make direct donations: |
|
|
SPECIES BANDED THIS WEEK: * = New species for 2005 WEEKLY BANDING TOTAL YEARLY BANDING TOTAL (2005) BANDING GRAND TOTAL NOTABLE RECAPTURES THIS WEEK American Goldfinch (1) House Finch (1) All text & photos © Hilton Pond Center
|
OTHER SIGHTINGS OF INTEREST --A deluge hit Hilton Pond Center on the evening of 21 Jun, when 1.2" of rain fell in an hour. Unlike our early spring precipitation, nearly all of it soaked into the ground, so almost no run-off entered the pond itself. --Two finches retrapped this week are of particular interest. One, a female American Goldfinch, had a well-developed brood patch. Since the vast majority of goldfinches banded at the Center are captured in winter before they migrate further north, this bird is significant because she apparently is a local breeder. The species occurs above South Carolina's Coastal Plain in summer, but there are very few actual nesting records for the state. --The second bird was a dark raspberry male House Finch (below left) that becomes the oldest of his species at Hilton Pond. Banded on 3 August 1998 as a recent fledgling with brown plumage, this bird is in his eighth year. A prominent cloacal protuberance indicated he's probably spreading his longevity genes to another new generation. Curiously, we've had no recaptures of this bird until this week when he blundered into a mist net; perhaps he's been "too smart" to get caught in a trap. (NOTE: The longest-lived House Finch reported to the federal Bird Banding Lab is 11 years and 7 months.)
|
(Back to Preceding Week; on to Next Week)
![]() You can also post questions for The Piedmont Naturalist |
Join the |
Search Engine for |
Up to Top of Page Back to This Week at Hilton Pond Center Current Weather Conditions at Hilton Pond Center |
|