Banding Report: Sunday, March 4 - 82 captured (67 different individuals)!!

[Rosyfinch]

Here is Nancy Cox's report. Unless some of these are same-day recaptures, there are many more rosy-finches visiting the feeder than we suspected. [see the following clarification-- 15 of the 82 were same-day recaptures-- thanks, nancy!] Ken

Hi all,

It was a very good day at the Crest House today.  Technically we didn't band any Rosy-finches.  However, we did have 82 Rosy-finch encounters.  All of these birds were recaptures (birds we had previously banded).  Thirty-four were Blacks and 48 were Brown-capped.  Most of these birds were banded this season.   Nine birds from previous years including:  one 6th year Brown-capped, one after 6th year Brown-capped and one Black that we originally banded while Ryan was still alive.  It was originally banded on February 5, 2005 as a 2nd year bird.  Based on the Bird Banding Lab criteria, this bird is estimated to be 7 yrs 7 months old.

We did see at least one Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch.

The Tucson Audubon Society was up watching the Rosy-finches and other birds today.  We want to thank them  for their generous donations and wonderful enthusiasm.  Several of them also got to see the American Three-Toed Woodpecker with Michael.

Road is clear.

Nancy & Steve

[Rosyfinch]

Nancy clarified-- Still quite an impressive total, given the low numbers reported at the feeders at any given time. It is not unusual for flock size to diminish towards the end of the season. This confirms that the absolute number may not decrease as much as we assumed. It will be interesting to "bracket" the departure of the birds, both the last flock and the last stragglers, so pleas fill out the sightings log. Ken

Hi Ken,

I just finished entering the repeats from yesterday and we handled 67 different individuals*.  We had a lot more same day repeats than we thought.  As I said before, they kept us busy and it was hard when we had several people recording for each one to check the other data sheets.   That is still more individuals than we thought because we know that there was at least one Gray-crowned that never got in our traps.

Nancy

*67 individuals not counting the Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch that was sighted but not captured.