WESTERN HUMMINGBIRDS VOL 1

That's great that your volunteering with them. Such a educational experience for you.

I always look for leg bands, maybe this year I'll see one.

A real cutie Adel!

Duc...I will look for leg bands this year!

A couple of not so good pics of the second hummer to show up. Can't tell if it's a female Rufous or an Allen's. Maybe our friend from across the pond can tell.

This message was edited Mar 25, 2009 1:11 PM

This message was edited Mar 25, 2009 1:12 PM

hh

Nope, not enough detail visible to tell!

Resin

very nice photos you NoCals, too cool to band the hummers Duc, how do you
catch them?
heres my local anna female-
haven't seen a Rufous, normally don't until
late April,
theory-- they follow the lowlands and river valleys then spread out
to higher ground when territories are taken. They can take their
time, seems to overtake anna's and rule this area.

same one little closer:

Very nice dirt!

thanks Pelle, hope you get your neighborhood full of hummers shortly,
weather isn't helping the migration around here.
gonna have to plunk down some cash for some big glass some of you
have.... the pics are outstanding.

Adel, your Rufous or Allen lady is really cute.

Dirt, we use a net, attached to to fish line which we pull to let it drop over the feeder.

Yea! Saw our first Rufous this morning. We were sitting in the spa ( which is only a few feet from the pergola where the feeders are hung) at just after dawn when their activity is very high and all of the Anna's were dive bombing each other and in between air assaults, a beauty of a Rufous came in for a drink and then left. Didn't see her again but it's good to know they're around now.

I love this picture of a hummer that we're weighing. They have a light screen covering them and the weight is usually about 4 grams.

No birds are injured in the banding process. They're timed from the time they're captured and held no longer than 10 minutes, usually 5 or 6 in normal. We also feed them and let them recover a bit in our open hand before they fly off.

Congratulations Begonia! Do you know for sure it's a female? I've always read that the male usually shows up first to stake out his territory and it's been true for my birds.

Congratulations begonia!!!

Don't know for sure if it is female,I am a neophyte to bird watching, but it was smaller than the others I've seen this season, so I just made the assumption. It was in and out fairly quickly.

Also for those that are interested, I saw this in the news today "Ninety years of birdwatchers' notes going online" http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/03/26/pp.bird.usgs/index.html

Another Hummer showed up today.........it's another either or Hummer.

That's pretty cool duc -- the little one on the scale looked like
a salmon fly I use to tie. Can't imagine what its thinking-
"the guys back at the feeding bar aint gonna believe this -
I was abducted by aliens, chained (holding tagged leg up)
and tortured on flat metal and
nearly crushed by a giant hand but I didn't tell them
our secret journey plans, no not me in fact when they
weren't looking I got away! I'm never going back there again."
or something like that.

another female anna on an east side rhodie-- always hanging out
there--

and with its eyes closed (i think)

LOL dirt! Great pics!

Great Adel! Two females with two possible nests!!

Dirt, your little Anna's is so cute. Looks like she was resting her eyes.

Duc, have any pictures of the band used, or a hummer with it on?
gotta have seamstress proficiency (threading the needle) to get that on.
If I ever see one who do you contact, esp. when it would be a fleeting
glimpse or a picture by chance or the worst senario (we all know what
that is) -- have an great uncle in oregon who gets swamped by rufous along
the williamette river, want to pass it on to him. He doesn't have a
computer and still has rabbit ears on his bw tv- most times he's
outside, gonna live forever - still hays and in his seventies. As much as
he is anti-digital he likes info and pics.
Come to think of it my sis in Portland, OR area saw her first ruf
at her neighbor's feeder talking to me on the phone.

and thankyou, Pelle.

me-- here's a curious female anna watching over me pull
some weeds today, heard it clicking, looked at the pine
and after a few times found it. Zoomed pic bad - but got her.
I have plenty of blurred males zipping along, none worth showing.

She is very sweet dirt!

She looks so pretty sitting in that pine, dirt.

thankyou pelle and dell,
hey duc. went back and downloaded your pic and saw the band (sortof)--
what info does it have?
so many questions, but ya got a dummy (me) interested.

from yesterday the female with white marking on right side and
the newest feather doo. (pic really cropped)

one of the newcomers.

a male Rufous I think.

Nice pics guys!

Duc your pictures and info on banding are fascinating. Thanks for sharing.

Great photo of your Rufous Adel.
Cute one Dirt here's more pictures as you requested-

Here's what the bands we use look like. There's an inset showing the actual band. Can you believe they're sized to the bird's leg?


This message was edited Mar 28, 2009 7:56 AM

Duc, Do they use any coloring on the head?

I'll try to get better photos next week, but this shows the bird's band-sorry it's not as clear as I'd like.

I don't know what you mean Pelle? You mean on the band?

We use a straw to lightly separate the feathers to check the stage, if any, of molting and also for the skin condition.

No on the head. I'll see if I can find some pics to show you,

Did they see many return hummingbirds that had been banded before?

I'd like to see the picture, but no, we don't put anything on them but the band.

I guess some sort of coloring on their head would identify if the bird was a recapture, but we just check for a band as we capture them in the initial traping and if it is, we check the computer to see when the bird was banded.

By the way, so far this year, we've just had one banding but one of our capture was a returning bird from 3 years ago which we banded. That's when we get excited!

This message was edited Mar 28, 2009 8:06 AM

Duc, it's so fascinating what you're doing because of the scale. Teeny tiny bands! How do you catch these hummers? Which hummers, other than Anna's and Rufous do we have here in our area.
I've been trying to keep my eye our for bands, none so far.

Hi Duc, This is really old but this is a site showing step by step banding process. This page shows them marking them.

http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/humm/BandingNewfield12.html

This is Nancy Newfield a hummingbird expert I know from another site.

Duc, this is really interesting! Maybe you can get a video of the process.

Sorry I had to leave for a while, today is housecleaning day with the hubby.

Pelle, I don't want to remark on the marking process until I talk to the biologists and see how they feel about it.
Another thing, as you can see from our trap (scroll up Begoniacrazii), our's is a soft netting so that when we pull the fish line to release the net, it won't injure a bird that might be close to the edge.

Here's a link to the reserve where we band the hummers. Once there, under Events, Opportunities & News, you can read about the things we do.

http://nrs.ucdavis.edu/McL/index.html


I should have done this all together, but once the netting traps the bird, we place them in a soft net bag and write the exact time that we caught it to prevent holding it too long a time. Sorry, I don't have a video camera. The birds don't move around when in the net and go into their torpor where they just wait patiently for their release.



This message was edited Mar 28, 2009 11:40 AM