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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. Such printouts are what a bird bander lives for; on them is printed information about a bird handled in the past by the bander and recently encountered somewhere by somebody else. A few banders--especially those who work with waterfowl that eventually get shot during hunting season--receive impressive numbers of these "Report to Bander" printouts, but precious few of our banded birds from Hilton Pond have been found dead or recaptured elsewhere. Needless to say, we were quite pleased to learn from the BBL that TWO wandering Purple Finches we banded at York SC in January 2004 recently showed up in places far to our north.

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, and we also know what a little wind can do to a 12-seater commercial aircraft. Thus, we're always incredulous that a small bird like a Purple Finch can make the same trip under its own power--but unassisted by jet fuel or turboprops AND without getting lost. That even 13 Purple Finches have made flights of 800 miles or more after we banded them at Hilton Pond Center is one of the true wonders of nature. It's too bad we typically learned details of their incredible journeys only after they were found dead and reported by folks curious why anyone would put a numbered aluminum band on a wandering finch's leg.

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.