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Gilmore Ponds Spring Migration, Summer Breeding Bird Survey (M.A.P.S.) and Fall Migration banding projects led by Sharon Pawlowski and Eric Burgess.
2007 Review & Photos by Eric Burgess We had another
excellent year of bird banding at Gilmore Ponds. First of all, I want to say
thank you for Audubon’s support this year. Your funding has now allowed us
to have enough equipment for two full time bird banders. The result was a
record number 34 banding sessions in 2007 and some good results. Also, your
funding is further justification for what all of us believe in: that Gilmore
Ponds is an important bird area and is worthy of research dollars and
support. The banders operating at Gilmore include Sharon Pawlowski and
myself. Our most important volunteer during the year was Heather Farrington,
a graduate student at the For those not
familiar with Gilmore Ponds it is a Butler County Metropark on the border
between Our banding year is split up into three sections and the weather conditions for all of them in 2007 were less than ideal. For spring migration it was very cold in April. Then it became warm quickly. Those hot and dry conditions persisted throughout MAPS and fall migration. Nevertheless, we persevered and got some interesting tallies. Spring migration,
which for us lasts from the middle of April until Memorial Day, was marked
by a high number of total species but low overall individual numbers. In all
we banded 46 species including 16 species of wood warblers and 8 other
species of neotropical migrants. However,
in the 15 spring banding days we only managed to capture 239 total birds, a
very low number. We did not get to 50 birds in any given day, which is
usually the watermark for a decent day of banding at Gilmore. Again, the
weather is partly to blame for this. However, spring migration is so
fleeting that many big pushes can be missed if banding is not on those days.
The highlights included the first hooded warbler ever banded at Gilmore,
high numbers of The section most affected by the drought was MAPS which is our summer breeding study and runs during June, July and early August. Unfortunately, many birds abandoned Gilmore Ponds during nesting because of the scarcity of water. We managed to catch only 15 species and 99 total birds although there were some highlights. These included four prothonotary warblers, two American woodcock, and two wood thrush one of which was a recapture from the Gilmore MAPS of 2006. The prothonotary warblers were adults caught in early June and were not seen or heard from again after that. We also banded an adult worm eating warbler in mid July which had left its breeding area. Fall migration is
usually our busiest time of year and 2007 was no exception. Fall migration
is longer and more protracted than the mad dash north that the birds undergo
in spring. The high numbers that we catch and the fact that many have laid
on large amounts of fat indicate that Gilmore is an important resting place
during this time of year. For us it runs from the end of August until mid
October. We banded 35 total species including 9 species of wood warbler and
8 other neotropical species. Because of the hot and dry conditions, 2007 was
not as good as our spectacular year of 2006. However, we got high numbers of
yellow-rumped warbler, ovenbird and American redstart. We also banded six
yellow bellied flycatchers, an astonishing number considering that several
years had passed since banding the last one. As you can see, the total
number of species captured was less but the total number of individuals was
a lot more and we got over 50 birds on a number of days. Of course, our resident birds were well represented in the tallies again this year. With the dense shrubby foliage it is no surprise that gray catbirds do well here. This was our most commonly banded bird in 2007 with a grand total of 214 new birds banded and 40 recaptures. Many of the recaptures were from the previous year although we caught one during MAPS that was originally banded in 2003 during our first year for MAPS. Northern cardinals and American robins were also frequently encountered in the nets with 55 and 100 total captures respectively. In general our banding shows a variety of interesting facts. The two most important in my opinion are these: 1.) Banding
allows to prove the existence of certain secretive birds that otherwise go
unnoticed. A perfect example of this is the 2.) Some species which are seen are in more abundance than might be suspected by casual bird watchers. This is true in particular of three species in 2007: northern waterthrush, ovenbird, and Swainson’s thrush for which we caught 13, 15 and 34 respectively. Considering what a small proportion of the land area that our nets cover, this shows that significant populations of these species inhabit Gilmore during migration. This is interesting because all of them prefer a much different habitat than ours during the breeding season. Of course, there are other interesting facts to glean from the data and if anyone has any questions or wants a more detailed account they are welcome to contact me or Sharon. During 2007 we had around 1900 total net hours and 500 total volunteer hours. Our largest ongoing concern is the need to recruit more volunteers willing to help out with the project. The largest ongoing crisis for the park is the continued proliferation of non-native plant species. Thank you again for your support.
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For information on volunteering at Tim's & affiliated banding stations in Ohio & Indiana, e-mail Tim |
