And, we're underway!

Nest box season is underway! Male Eastern Bluebirds have been spotted perched atop boxes at Boyce-Mayview and Peterswood Park. Several boxes contain some grasses, the beginnings of nests.

The Tree Swallows have returned, and one has begun nest-building at Peterswood Park. Numerous others were seen today performing their acrobatic flights over the nest box area and adjacent fields. At least one Eastern Bluebird seems to have selected a box here as well. It will be interesting to see if he will be able to maintain his property rights or if he will be displaced by swallows.

I will be color-banding birds this year and will post more about that soon. Come back for updates to see how you can be involved!

Who?

Hey, uh-oh  that's not a Northern Saw-whet Owl! That's what I was thinking as I came up to the net near the end of the night recently. This beautiful red morph Eastern Screech Owl graced our nets, after I heard bill snapping as I walked by on a net check. Screech Owls are larger than saw-whet owls, with matching "larger" personalities, and talons! Despite all of that, this owl was easy to extract and was released without even leaving a scratch.

Anybody out there?

Are there any owls out there? This weekend we will undertake our first spring Northern Saw-whet Owl banding. Although spring migration is usually more dispersed, we will make efforts this spring to determine if Northern Saw-whet Owls are moving back through this area on their way north. Our efforts in the spring are not as concentrated as in the fall, but we will be out there checking the nets. Results will be posted here. Stay tuned!

Work Days

 Sunny weather and warmer temperatures meant it was time to get out and rehab some nest boxes in Boyce-Mayview Park. We worked on boxes in two fields over the past two days. The box pictured above had been cleaned out and was waiting for it's new, shiny baffle. The baffle is a piece of stovepipe attached around the mounting post which will "baffle" predators, and block their access to the nesting box.

Predators are a major reason for nest failure in nest boxes. As you can see from this photo, the wide post allows various predators easy access to the nest box. Although there was an existing predator guard, (hardware cloth) around the opening of the box, raccoons and cats would still be able to reach inside to grab nestlings or brooding birds. Snakes also are a big threat to nests and many snakes are able to climb. Installing the baffles around the poles will keep most predators out.

 Not everyone cleans out nesting boxes each year, but I like to so that the birds have a nice clean home for their time spent in the box. Cleaning out the box removes overwintering parasites as well, so the new breeding birds will have a better chance at success.

It was a little challenging to figure out how to engineer the materials to fit around various configurations on different boxes in the park, but we soon developed a good system and efficiently put baffles on eight more boxes. This should increase productivity and I am excited for the breeding season.

Looks like we were finishing up just in time. Some nasty weather was rolling in. It's beautiful habitat for Eastern Bluebirds and Tree Swallows!

The engineer at work building a predator guard in the field.

Hopefully, this year all of the paperwork will come through to allow me to color band the nest box birds. This means that if you pay attention to the color combinations of bands on the birds' legs, you will be able to figure out if you are seeing the same birds at different times. Color band marking will allow me an easier way to gather data on the productivity, survival and return rates of many of these birds. Watch the blog, (or the birds!) for new developments!

Project Owlnet- Boyce Mayview Station

This year marked the second year of operating the Project Owlnet station in Boyce-Mayview Park, located in Upper St. Clair. Despite an early large movement of owls to our north, it was a slow season for banding the species through the Appalachian area. However, this year we banded four Northern Saw-whet owls in the park, all of them females. We had numerous visitors to the park to see the process. Some of these visitors were lucky enough to see an owl, and some were not. Attempting to catch and band Northern Saw-whet Owls requires a lot of patience! 

As you may know, these small owls (our smallest owl species in this area) migrate from the boreal forest in Canada to areas south for the winter. There are some breeding populations in the higher elevations of West Virginia and Central Pennsylvania, however, most birds are coming from the boreal forest and continuing south to find food in the fall. The peak of the migration for our area seems to be right around Halloween through mid-November. Last year, our first owl was caught on the night of 29 October; this year our first owls showed up in our nets on 2 November, when it was a two-owl night. 

We capture and band these birds in order to better understand their migration and factors which may affect their migration. As with any other bird which is netted, biometric information such as mass, wing length, age and sex is gathered without harm to the bird. Birds are banded and released to continue on their way. The data we collect is pooled with other stations' information in order to further study this secretive migrant of the night. 

An adult female Northern Saw-whet Owl prior to release from the station.

These owls are small, but very efficient hunters; notice the talons. 

By examining the feathers, we are able, in most cases, to determine the age of the bird.

Ultraviolet light is used to examine the wing of the Northern Saw-whet Owl. Owls have a chemical in their feathers called porphyrin. Ultraviolet light reveals the amount of porphyrin in the wing; the brighter purple or pink feathers have more porphyrin than do other feathers. This tells us that the feathers are fresher than the ones with less saturation of color. Based on what we know about how this species molts its feathers, this helps us determine, rather precisely, the age of the bird.

We will be offering several public nights in the park next fall, so watch for announcements either here or through the Outdoor Classroom if you are interested in learning more about this captivating species.

MAPS in MINGO...what?

This summer brought a new project my way. I established a MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship) station in Mingo Creek Park, with support from Powdermill Avian Research Center, the environmental research station of the Carnegie Museum located in the Laurel Highlands and the Washington County Department of Parks. 

MAPS is a program staffed by researchers and citizen scientists which monitors the breeding populations of local species in many areas across the world. The data collected by MAPS stations is often used by other researchers to investigate what may be affecting breeding populations of birds. 

This year, with the help of several people, the Mingo MAPS Station was operated for the full breeding season in our area. This involved eight visits from the end of May to the beginning of August to our established area in the park. Before dawn, mist nets were erected and opened. Banding ran for six hours for each visit. 

We were surprised on our first visit to capture and band several Brown Thrashers. Several were in breeding condition so this tells us that there is a breeding population of this species in the park. We hoped to capture some of the young later in the season, but we did not. We do not know if the species successfully bred. Birds face many challenges to their survival, especially when in the nest when they are very vulnerable to predators. 

We were happy to find a breeding population of Blue-winged Warblers in the park. These warblers are often found in early successional habitat and woodlands.They spend winters in Central America.

We also found numerous breeding pairs of Yellow Warblers. These birds seemed to be ubiquitous in the park, continually singing and appearing in our nets and nearby branches, seemingly watching us. 

Another surprise was to find two Bobolinks in the park. We hoped to find one in our nets, but they managed to stay clear of the nets! 

This project will return to Mingo this coming late spring through summer. Feel free to stop by if you see us and learn a bit about these birds. There will be a public program offered in early June. Look for the program schedule from the Washington County Parks. 

Brown Thrasher

Blue-winged Warblers

Common Yellowthroat 

The stunning wing of a Northern Flicker 

The stately Blue Jay 

Red-winged Blackbird 

Hatch-year Wood Thrush 

Winter is Catch-Up Time

Sometimes it takes awhile to update the blog, but winter is a good time to do it. It was a very successful breeding season in the park this summer with several active nests. Thirteen Eastern Bluebirds and thirteen Tree Swallows hatched and fledged from the nestboxes this summer. Some of the banded young Eastern Bluebirds have been seen in the park this winter. Hopefully, some of them will nest here this spring. 

Here are some photo highlights from the spring and summer: 

Eastern Bluebird eggs in a nestbox.  After about 14 days of incubation, the eggs hatch and after about eight days the hatchlings look like this...

then  this...

 and this ...

 still growing...

The screen on this box helps prevent predators from reaching the birds or the eggs. The cylindrical-shaped metal, known as a "baffle" which you may notice on the poles also prevents predators such as snakes or raccoons from climbing the poles and reaching the birds. Two of the baffles have disappeared this winter. If you have information on how they disappeared, please email me. There is a cost involved to replace them. Please do not remove them. 

This is a female adult Tree Swallow, which nested here last year as well. We know that it is the same bird because last year I banded her with a lightweight aluminum band with a unique 9-digit number on it. After I caught her this year, I was able to look up her band number and see that she also nested here last year. She had another successful breeding season and hopefully will return this spring.