Since Tom’s banding project for MAPS will finish up this weekend, I emailed Scott Stoleson of the US Forest Service to see if he had projects going on. He does. In fact, he has three. They will spend a week at one, then move to the next for a week, then the next, and then cycle back to the first. They started in mid July and will continue through September! Wow! So many opportunities. I hope I can make several of them.
Anyway, I rolled out of bed early this morning, chugged a couple of cups of coffee, and hit the road. I was sure I could find today’s banding site with no problem; it looked so easy on the map. Darkness and fog and road construction confused me. I passed The Road twice and found Another Road, but it didn’t seem right. I called Scott’s house at 6am and got his wife, Pam.
“Did I wake you?”
“That’s all right,” she said. “I had to answer the phone anyway.” Sorry, sorry, sorry!!!
A quick correction and I finally found the site. Don, Linda, Emily, and Amy welcomed me. They got a chuckle out of my waking Scott.
It’s an interesting site. Four nets are set up on either side of the road. To the southeast of the road there is a fairly mature forest. For this photo, I was standing in the cut section looking back across the road toward the forest:
To the northwest, there is an area that was nearly clearcut a while back. For this photo (in which the sky got over-exposed and I’m not good enough at Photoshop to fix it), I was standing in the forest looking over the road toward the cut:
Part of the project is to determine if birds that breed in the forest interior will use the clearcut when they are done breeding. I think they have some answers already, but I don’t remember… I was too busy trying to learn about the banding process and about identifying birds!
Most of the birds we took out of the nets I had seen in the hand before at previous banding sessions: American Redstart, Hermit Thrush, Scarlet Tanager, Song Sparrow, Chipping Sparrow. But I did have one new one today!! This one is for Young Naturalist J 
Ovenbird
When Emily pulled that bird out of the transport bag, I wasn’t sure what it was, but “waterthrush” popped into my head. I was not quite so disappointed with myself for the misidentification when I read this at the Cornell website under the “Similar Species” heading:
Northern and Louisiana waterthrushes similar, but have broad whitish eyestripes, are less round in shape, more dark brown on the back, lack the orange and black crown, and constantly bob their tails.
The Ovenbird gets its name from the fact that its nest looks like a little oven on the ground with a side entrance. Tom (aka Monarch) has a photo of one from 2002 on his Flickr site:
Ovenbird Nest (with some Cowbird eggs)
I have more stories to tell, but for now, let me just say thanks to Don, Linda, Emily, and Amy for once again being great teachers. And let me once again say SORRY to Scott for waking him up.
Learn more about Ovenbirds:
Filed under: bird banding, bird conservation, bird research, birds, nature
OMG Jen, I love those little bird eggs. And congrats on your new blog. I had a feeling you were heading in this direction, with all of your birding posts as of late! Congratulations!
Great job, Jennifer! I’ve added this site to my reader. It will be so informative and educational to visit here. I look forward to more.