Autumn Iverson

Autumn Iverson

Sep 15, 2018

Group 6 Copy 188
2

Banding birds and reaching 50% funding!

Yesterday was a great day for this project! I want to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone that has contributed so far - we made 50%!! Half-way there and 18 days to go! It's amazing and I hope this progress continues!

Also, yesterday I spent some time volunteering at Point Blue Conservation Science at their Palomarin Field Station, which is always fun! They've been banding birds (banding is with numbered leg bands, not GPS tags) at the Station since 1966, making them the longest running avian ecology field station west of the Mississippi! They are truly wonderful people with so much to teach. They even let visitors follow along and watch the banding, so if you are in the area I highly recommend it! Below are some pictures of some of the birds we banded yesterday.

At the Palomarin Field Station where two Flycatchers (see book pictures in foreground) and a Hairy Woodpecker are being measured and banded.

A beautiful little "wiwa" - a Wilson's Warbler. Both males and females can have a black cap and so sex is determined through careful measurements.

A blue-grey gnatcatcher - a rare capture at the Palomarin Field Station. From the picture it's hard to tell how tiny this bird is, but trust me - it's tiny!

Here I am just about to release this Wrentit back to it's territory. Wrentits don't migrate and keep small home ranges. I learned yesterday that if territories are scarce, parents will shrink theirs to share with their offspring - something that is not a common practice among birds!


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About This Project

I research migration paths for the golden-crowned sparrow. Migration is one of the least understood phases of the life-cycle of these birds. During the winter of 2019, I plan to put GPS tags on 10 birds in California, as part of a larger tagging project. In 2020, I will go back to the same location to recapture the birds and collect the tags. I expect to retrieve 1 in 3 tags. I plan to download tag data and analyze the results to write up as a journal publication.

Blast off!

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