BIRD-A-THON! And other adventures...

Capture Highlights:

Purple Finch

Brown Creeper

Hutton's Vireo

Red-breasted Sapsucker

White-throated Sparrow

Common Yellowthroat (hatch year male, so not the full black mask that an adult would have)

The past couple of weeks have been pretty busy here at Palo – we did our Bird-A-Thon, I turned in my Capstone project, my parents came to visit me at the station and finally got to see what I do in person, I went to Game 5 of the NLCS (go Giants!), went to the first NASA Ames open house in 17 years, and am in the midst of a 3-day banding certification test (the written test was this afternoon).

Our Bird-A-Thon team: The Lookers!

First of all, the Bird-A-Thon was awesome – we left just before 6am and walked 14.5 miles over the next 13 hours. We detected 126 bird species (see bottom for list), stopped at like 4 staff member’s houses for refreshments and bathroom breaks, got a second wind after grabbing a quick round of gin and tonics from the bar in town, and finished the day with beer, homemade lasagna, and cheesy garlic bread from a staff member who couldn’t participate that day. It was awesome, and exhausting. Thanks for all of your support and donations!

Our route

Mark is checking the barn for barn owls

Looking for shorebirds and seabirds

Wrapping up the day with a beautiful view

Last week I turned in a final draft of my Capstone project, which was adding to an already-started migration booklet to display in the banding lab. I went through historical recovery data and picked out interesting recoveries (recovery means not necessarily captured at another banding station, but may have been hit by a car, run into a window, found injured/dead, attacked by cat, etc.). Anyways, I picked out interesting recovery locations and made maps of how far individuals of certain species have traveled. For instance, we’ve banded Wilson’s Warblers and Western Tanagers that have been recovered in Mexico, and Hermit Thrushes that have been recovered in northern Canada! These birds can really move. It was also really interesting to look at the recovery data – one of the Wilson’s Warblers that I looked at had been shot, which was super confusing until I heard that it was shot by a kid with a slingshot, not an actual gun.

I was also fortunate enough to get to go to the Giants game last Thursday! That was awesome because I haven’t been to a Giants game in ages, I got to spend time with family, and they advanced to the World Series!!! Woooo!

Cutest little Giants fan

UAVSAR plane

Then on Saturday I went to the NASA Ames open house, which was pretty cool. It was funny because there was a huge range of knowledge among the visitors, so a space enthusiast would ask someone at a booth something super complicated, which would be followed by a child asking “WHAT’S THIS BUTTON DO??” But it was really cool, especially the random freebies and the massive wind tunnel! The wind tunnel was my favorite, but there was also a really cool UAVSAR (Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar) plane which collects radar images of the earth to detect movements from earthquakes, volcanoes, and such. They just did a flight over Napa and saw the movement from that earthquake a couple months ago. Neat! The guys there also gave me a bunch of stickers and patches and a NASA ruler, so that may have also helped sway me.

I'M ON MARS!

Wind tunnel

I mentioned that I’m in the middle of a 3-day banding certification test – I just took the written test this afternoon, and next week I have a specimen exam and then a field exam. The written test wasn’t so bad, but the specimen and field exams should be interesting. For the specimen exam I’ll be given 10 stuffed and/or frozen birds along with photos to identify, age, and sex. I only have 7 minutes per individual which seems like a lot of time, but since we are fall banders and could potentially see some vagrants in the area, they might include those in the test, in which case it could be a bird I’ve never seen before in my life. In that case 7 minutes is not nearly enough time. Finally, the field exam is just doing our usually banding, but we’ll have banding trainers following our every move while taking notes the entire time, from setting up the nets to packing up at the end of the day. That’s a little intimidating, but I bet it will be fine (or it’ll be the day when EVERYTHING goes wrong). I guess we'll find out!

The Lookers’ Species List (taxonomic order, not chronological)

American Wigeon - Anas americana

Mallard - Anas platyrhynchos

Northern Shoveler - Anas clypeata

Northern Pintail - Anas acuta

Green-winged Teal - Anas crecca

Ring-necked Duck - Aythya collaris

Surf Scoter - Melanitta perspicillata

California Quail - Callipepla californica

Red-throated Loon - Gavia stellata

Common Loon - Gavia immer

Pied-billed Grebe - Podilymbus podiceps

Eared Grebe - Podiceps nigricollis

Western Grebe - Aechmophorus occidentalis

Clark's Grebe - Aechmophorus clarkii

Brandt's Cormorant - Phalacrocorax penicillatus

Double-crested Cormorant - Phalacrocorax auritus

Pelagic Cormorant - Phalacrocorax pelagicus

Brown Pelican - Pelecanus occidentalis

Great Blue Heron - Ardea herodias

Great Egret - Ardea alba

Snowy Egret - Egretta thula

Green Heron - Butorides virescens

Turkey Vulture - Cathartes aura

White-tailed Kite - Elanus leucurus

Northern Harrier - Circus cyaneus

Sharp-shinned Hawk - Accipiter striatus

Cooper's Hawk - Accipiter cooperii

Red-shouldered Hawk - Buteo lineatus

Red-tailed Hawk - Buteo jamaicensis

American Coot - Fulica americana

American Avocet - Recurvirostra americana

Black-bellied Plover - Pluvialis squatarola

Killdeer - Charadrius vociferus

Greater Yellowlegs - Tringa melanoleuca

Willet - Tringa semipalmata

Whimbrel - Numenius phaeopus

Long-billed Curlew - Numenius americanus

Marbled Godwit - Limosa fedoa

Least Sandpiper - Calidris minutilla

Pectoral Sandpiper - Calidris melanotos

Western Sandpiper - Calidris mauri

Parasitic Jaeger - Stercorarius parasiticus

Common Murre - Uria aalge

Heermann's Gull - Larus heermanni

Ring-billed Gull - Larus delawarensis

Western Gull - Larus occidentalis

California Gull - Larus californicus

Glaucous-winged Gull - Larus glaucescens

Elegant Tern - Thalasseus elegans

Band-tailed Pigeon - Patagioenas fasciata

Eurasian Collared-Dove - Streptopelia decaocto

Mourning Dove - Zenaida macroura

Great Horned Owl - Bubo virginianus

Spotted Owl - Strix occidentalis

Northern Saw-whet Owl - Aegolius acadicus

Anna's Hummingbird - Calypte anna

Belted Kingfisher - Megaceryle alcyon

Acorn Woodpecker - Melanerpes formicivorus

Red-breasted Sapsucker - Sphyrapicus ruber

Nuttall's Woodpecker - Picoides nuttallii

Downy Woodpecker - Picoides pubescens

Hairy Woodpecker - Picoides villosus

Northern Flicker - Colaptes auratus

American Kestrel - Falco sparverius

Merlin - Falco columbarius

Peregrine Falcon - Falco peregrinus

Black Phoebe - Sayornis nigricans

Say's Phoebe - Sayornis saya

Tropical Kingbird - Tyrannus melancholicus

Cassin's Vireo - Vireo cassinii

Hutton's Vireo - Vireo huttoni

Warbling Vireo - Vireo gilvus

Steller's Jay - Cyanocitta stelleri

Western Scrub-Jay - Aphelocoma californica

American Crow - Corvus brachyrhynchos

Common Raven - Corvus corax

Chestnut-backed Chickadee - Poecile rufescens

Bushtit - Psaltriparus minimus

Red-breasted Nuthatch - Sitta canadensis

Pygmy Nuthatch - Sitta pygmaea

Brown Creeper - Certhia americana

House Wren - Troglodytes aedon

Pacific Wren - Troglodytes pacificus

Marsh Wren - Cistothorus palustris

Bewick's Wren - Thryomanes bewickii

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher - Polioptila caerulea

Golden-crowned Kinglet - Regulus satrapa

Ruby-crowned Kinglet - Regulus calendula

Wrentit - Chamaea fasciata

Western Bluebird - Sialia mexicana

Swainson's Thrush - Catharus ustulatus

Hermit Thrush - Catharus guttatus

American Robin - Turdus migratorius

Northern Mockingbird - Mimus polyglottos

European Starling - Sturnus vulgaris

American Pipit - Anthus rubescens

Cedar Waxwing - Bombycilla cedrorum

Orange-crowned Warbler - Oreothlypis celata

MacGillivray's/Mourning Warbler - Geothlypis tolmiei/philadelphia

Common Yellowthroat - Geothlypis trichas

Yellow Warbler - Setophaga petechia

Yellow-rumped Warbler - Setophaga coronata

Black-throated Gray Warbler - Setophaga nigrescens

Townsend's Warbler - Setophaga townsendi

Spotted Towhee - Pipilo maculatus

California Towhee - Melozone crissalis

Chipping Sparrow - Spizella passerina

Savannah Sparrow - Passerculus sandwichensis

Fox Sparrow - Passerella iliaca

Song Sparrow - Melospiza melodia

Lincoln's Sparrow - Melospiza lincolnii

White-crowned Sparrow - Zonotrichia leucophrys

Golden-crowned Sparrow - Zonotrichia atricapilla

Dark-eyed Junco - Junco hyemalis

Western Tanager - Piranga ludoviciana

Red-winged Blackbird - Agelaius phoeniceus

Tricolored Blackbird - Agelaius tricolor

Western Meadowlark - Sturnella neglecta

Brewer's Blackbird - Euphagus cyanocephalus

Brown-headed Cowbird - Molothrus ater

House Finch - Haemorhous mexicanus

Purple Finch - Haemorhous purpureus

Pine Siskin - Spinus pinus

Lesser Goldfinch - Spinus psaltria

American Goldfinch - Spinus tristis

House Sparrow - Passer domesticus