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Powdermill Nature Reserve's Bird Banding Program, located on the 2,200-acre biological field station of Carnegie Museum of Natural History in the Laurel Highlands region of southwestern Pennsylvania, completed its 43rd fall migration banding season in 2004.  The station was in operation 99 out of a possible 120 days from August through November.  Total banding effort for the fall 2004 season was 27,670 net-hours (average 231 net/trap hrs./day), the first of many record setting highs for this fall.  Far exceeding the 42-year average of 15,373 net hours, this total also exceeded our previous banding effort record of 23,655 by more than 4,000 hours and surely contributed to our above average banding total of 7798 birds (42 year avg. 6298).

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The large number of net hours this fall reflects both favorable weather conditions for banding throughout much of the season and the addition of a few more nets around the banding area, but, it is attributable to the assistance and dedication of all of our visting bander friends and colleagues, interns, volunteers, and fall bander workshop participants.  For this reason we begin by saying THANK YOU to: Mike Comley, Bill Diehl, Pam Ferkett, Randi Gerrish, Tom Greg, Dan Hinnebusch, Jim Ingold, Brian Jones, Carroll Labarthe, David Liebman, Annie Lindsay, Cokie Lindsay, Gary and Sandy Lockerman, Molly McDermott, Trish Miller, Jake Mohlmann, Felicity Newell, Robert Nugent, Kelly Perkins, Katherine Reinamen, Joe Schreiber, Carole Shanahan, Debbie and Al Sherkow, Matt Shumar, Rosemary Spreha, and Guy Ubaghs. (names in red are those who volunteered a week or more of their time to the fall banding efforts at Powdermill this year) We benefited once again from an extended visit by Dr. David Norman, our British friend and ringing colleague from the Merseyside Ringing Group, whose visit this fall, again, coincided perfectly for adding assistance and some "overseas" banding insight during part of the first fall bander workshop offered this year.  We were also fortunate enough to be paid a visit by the Bird Banding Laboratory's recent acting chief and long-time biologist, Mary Gustafson. We also thank our workshop participants Carol and Fred McCullogh, Deb Plotts, Gretchen Putonen, Clay Corbin, Fred Bassett, Virginia Duffy, and Tom LeBlanc for their participation and especially their help and patience during the "busy days" when normal workshop activities were put on hold.  Finally,we are extremely fortunate to have Dr. David Smith as the director of Powdermill Nature Reserve and in addition to the help he's provided on more than one occassion to the general daily banding operations, we are  grateful for his unfailing support of the banding program and research at the Powdermill Avian Research Center.  Last, but certainly not least, we thank our highly skilled data entry operator at Carnegie Museum's Section of Birds, Marilyn Niedermeier, who painstakingly enters, checks and double checks all of our banding records, and who is responsible for generating banding schedules and filling data requests.

The closely corresponding relationship between effort and totals is confirmed when we examine the correlation between these two variables in the graph below.  Note that the banding total for fall 2004 (green symbol) is slightly lower than would be predicted from the overall correlation given the higher than average banding effort this fall.

This fall 110 species of birds were banded, which ties as the fifth highest ever species total for the fall season.   (click here for a table of species totals given in descending order).  The diversity of species banded by day is plotted in the graph below.  Unlike most years at Powdermilll where species diversity peaks two to three weeks before banding totals, the days with the most species banded (47 and 43), also coincided with the highest daily banding totals for the season (on 9/14 and 9/29 respectively).

Our Fall 2004 season highlight, undoubtedly, was the banding of the first ever Black-headed Grosbeak in the 43 year history of the program, bringing the cumulative Powdermill fall banding list to 172 species (including two hybrid forms and two recognizable subspecies).  A few other good "gets" (species for which we average less than one banded per fall) included: Green Heron, Spotted Sandpiper, Pileated Woodpecker, Northern Mockingbird, Worm-eating Warbler, and Grasshopper Sparrow. Altenatively, conspicuous "misses" this fall (i.e., species for which an average of one or more has been banded during fall) included: Red-winged Blackbird, Barn Swallow, Mourning Dove, Evening Grosbeak, Olive-sided Flycatcher, Prairie Warbler, House Sparrow, and Marsh Wren.

Eight species set record high totals this fall, many surpassing the previous high totals by 50 or more birds.  Black-throated Green Warbler crushed the previous record of 130 with 208 birds banded and Hooded Warbler followed in suit with 237 beating out the previous record of 189.  Red-eyed Vireo surpassed the record total set just last year of 249 with 303 birds.  The remaining species records are as follows with 2004 fall total/previous record high: Acadian Flycatcher 44/42, Chestnut-sided Warbler 101/98, Black-throated Blue Warbler 101/74, Scarlet Tanager 145/108, and Blue-headed Vireo 74/53.  These record totals, many of locally breeding bird species, seem to be further evidence of the very productive 2004 breeding season experienced by many birds in the Laurel Valley, as well as elsewhere.  See also the 2004 Summer Summary.  In the tables below, totals and capture rates for fall 2004 are compared to averages, standard deviations (S.D.), minima, and maxima for the preceding 42 years.  White rows highlight species that were one or more S.D. above or below the long-term average for banding total and capture rate (comparisons were made only for species with a long-term average banding total >1).  Species in red were below average; blue denotes species that were above average.  An incredible 29 species were one or more standard deviations above average in fall 2004, in terms of raw banding total, and only two were below average.  Confirming the importance of adjusting for effort in comparing banding totals from year to year, examination of capture rates gives a very different picture with just eight species being above average and 15 below average.