Powdermill Fall 2006 BIG DAY

Powdermill Bird Banding

Fall 2006

BIG DAY!!!

While an 890 bird day may not come as all that much of a surprise at some banding stations in North America (e.g., along the coasts where huge migration fallouts can occur), it definitely was at the Powdermill Banding Station, where a record single day catch of 621 has gone unbroken (and largely unchallenged) for 40 years! In general, Powdermill simply is not geographically well-positioned for such large single day catches. In fact, prior to October 6, we had logged just nine days in the 45 year history of the program with >400 birds banded. Needless to say, this new record will go down in history here at Powdermill and likely will stand for a very long time! Thank you to Prof. David Norman for guest-authoring much of the following commentary on our big day:

How did it happen? After a series of more or less routine and steady days of banding from 1-5 October, giving us a respectable five-day total of 618 new and 88 recaptures, we were enjoying ourselves and getting used to working together as a team. A good day was anticipated for Friday, 6 October after a cold front moved through during the day on Thursday, winds shifted around to the north, and many birds were heard calling as they took off at dusk. But our hearts sank as it started to rain at 8:30 that evening and carried on, quite hard, until 10 p.m. Little did we know that these circumstances had apparently downed many of the migrating birds in our area, providing the conditions that would lead to a most remarkable day in the history of the Powdermill banding program.

How did we do it? Starting at 6:15 a.m., we checked the weather radar to insure that any threat of rain had passed, confirmed that the day was indeed calm and overcast, and proceeded to open up 54 nets. The first couple of net rounds brought reasonable numbers of birds, but before long we knew things were getting serious (VERY serious)! Only a very efficient division of labor would enable us to keep pace. Visiting ringers, Chris Benson and Scott Kennedy, took primary responsibility for running the nets and extracting birds continuously for several hours. Kristin Sesser and Lauren McFarland carried bird bags to and fro between them and the banding lab and helped sort the bags (to species and band size) in order to expedite processing. Bob Leberman and Deb Plotts actually banded the birds, and I processed them--every one being aged and sexed, with wing, fat and weight measured, and with molt limits recorded for most of them. Cokie Lindsay scribed all day, concentrating through all the background noise (mainly birds rustling in their bags). By 11:30 a.m., we closed down 30 of the nets, leaving open just 24 for the afternoon session, and we set up a second banding table at which Bob concentrated on the task of processing 195 kinglets. We called out for pizza to keep the team going at lunch-time, worked steadily through the afternoon as birds just kept on coming, and gradually closed more nets. The last bird of the day was banded, processed and released at 7:20 p.m., just before dark. All of the great teamwork had paid off, enabling us to band and fully process the equivalent of one bird every 48 seconds for twelve hours straight!

What records were set? As mentioned above, Powdermill's long-standing single day banding total has been 621 birds (16 October 1965) for more than 40 years. The 890 banded on October 6, 2006 positively crushed that record! Our third and fourth place daily totals are now 576 birds (22 October 1982) and 532 birds (28 October 2001). Another new record was the 352 Ruby-crowned Kinglets banded on 10/6, relegating the previous high daily total of 118 to a distant second place. The second most numerous bird banded on the big day was 148 Yellow-rumped (Myrtle) Warblers, which actually came in second to the single day record total of 187 banded on 10 October 1982, and nudging out the 143 banded on 8 October 1978 for second place.

What about species diversity? Not only the overall banding total (more than half of it made up of just two species), but also the total number of species banded on October 6th, 47 (including 19 species of wood warblers), was exceptional--the latter especially so for October.

SPECIES	10/6
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker	1
Eastern Phoebe	8
Blue-headed Vireo	12
Red-eyed Vireo	8
Blue Jay	1
Tufted Titmouse	2
Brown Creeper	1
House Wren	6
Winter Wren	11
Golden-crowned Kinglet	35
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	352
Gray-cheeked Thrush	5
Swainson's Thrush	11
Hermit Thrush	3
Gray Catbird	25
Brown Thrasher	1
Tennessee Warbler	2
Orange-crowned Warbler	4
Nashville Warbler	5
Northern Parula	1
Chestnut-sided Warbler	1
Magnolia Warbler	7
Cape May Warbler	4
Black-throated Blue Warbler	7
Yellow-rumped Warbler	148
Black-throated Green Warbler	10
Pine Warbler	1
"Western" Palm Warbler	8
"Yellow" Palm Warbler	1
Blackpoll Warbler	1
American Redstart	1
Northern Waterthrush	1
Connecticut Warbler	1
Common Yellowthroat	14
Wilson's Warbler	1
Scarlet Tanager	1
Eastern Towhee	3
Chipping Sparrow	2
Field Sparrow	10
Song Sparrow	24
Lincoln's Sparrow	9
Swamp Sparrow	61
White-throated Sparrow	53
White-crowned Sparrow	7
Dark-eyed Junco	2
Indigo Bunting	14
American Goldfinch	4
Daily Banding Total	890
Number of Species	47
Number Net-Trap Hours	355
No. Birds/100 Net-Trap Hours	250.7
No. Recaptures	1

The Powdermill Banding Team (Adrienne Leppold, Bob Mulvihill, and Mike Lanzone) owe HUGE thanks to Senior Bird Bander Emeritus, Bob Leberman and our substitute ringing team, David Norman, Deb Plotts, Chris Benson, and Scott Kennedy (in photo below), for their extraordinary team effort, not only on this big day, but throughout the ten-day period when the rest of us were in Mexico at the IV North American Ornithological Conference. They banded 2,022 birds of 70 species over the course of the period. We also thank Powdermill staff Cokie Lindsay (Operations Coordinator), Kristin Sesser (GIS Technician), and Lauren McFarland (GIS Intern) for helping make the 6th of October 2006 a historic day.

(left to right) Deb Plotts, David Norman, Chris Benson, Scott Kennedy, Bob Leberman,
looking a little bit tired, but happy, at the end of their Big Day!

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Last Updated on 10/12/06
By Dr. David Norman
with additions from Adrienne Leppold and
Robert Mulvihill