Bizzare 'Bama: Week #7 in review

Mary headed back up to Oberlin Monday to get back to teaching, but we offered to continue collecting samples for her if we get a big catbird day. Mary wants to compare the uropygial gland secretions of adult and hatch year catbirds, but it has been difficult for her to get samples from adult birds because they migrate so early. We're hoping that on a day when we catch a lot of catbirds, a few of them will be after hatch year birds that we can sample for her. Then we'll send the samples on ice via same day FedEx up to Ohio.

We've had some bad weather and even had to delay opening the nets twice this week because of the rain. It was nice for a chance to sleep in, though! We've also had some crazy winds. Ideally, we'd like some North winds to bring us birds from the North flying South. Lately we've been getting some REALLY strong (15- 20 mph) North winds. This causes two problems: birds don't stop at our site because they have the right wind to fly across the Gulf and we can't open all of our nets in that strong wind.

We did have some bizarre happenings at the site this week. The indigo bunting below has a crazy bill deformity- and she is missing her left eye! She was in good condition; e.g. her fat score on a scale of 5 was a 3, so she's obviously figured out how to work around her disabilities.




I caught my favorite insect, a weevil, in one of our nets. This guy was about half the size of my thumb!



We caught our first hawk on the 13th. This male Cooper's Hawk was hatched this summer, and had been banded down the road at another station closer to Fort Morgan. He's been making rounds at both of the stations- he was recaptured three times in two days! I've never held a hawk before, so this was pretty exciting for me. Nikita extracted him from the net, and the trick is to keep the feet restrained. Everyone tells me the beaks are a smaller problem, but I'm still pretty afraid of that hooked bill! As my dad would say, "Once again, Jenn doing dangerous things . . ." (Other photos in this category include me holding bats and a 3' land monitor lizard).



We also caught our first Painted Bunting this week, adding yet another species to my life list. Here's Jaci holding this hatch-year male.



We had our first two Yellow-Throated Warblers of the season, too. These are both hatch-year males.



Today has been fabulous so far. We had some strong North winds but we were able to open 17 of our 30 nets this morning, and we're going out again in a few minutes. What has been more incredible is the raptor migration. We've seen Broad-Winged Hawks, Cooper Hawks, a Swainson Hawk, an immature Bald Eagle, American Kestrels and Turkey Vultures, among others. I'll try to figure out posting videos so you can see what it was like at the site.



Another highlight of today was a scissor-tailed flycatcher! (not my photo)