FreeLists / birdky / [birdky] Land Between The Lakes Hummer Report

[RESEARCH Hilton Pond Center <research@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Last weekend (1-3 August) son Garry (the trapper), wife Susan (the 
support person), and I (the bander) participated in the annual 
Hummingbird Fest 2003 at Woodlands Nature Center at Land Between The 
Lakes near Golden Pond, Kentucky. Bob Sargent has banded at this 
festival in past years.

With public education as the festival's mandate, I first gave a 
Friday night lecture on "Hummingbirds and Hamburgers: The Tropical 
Connection" for a hundred or so folks. Saturday dawned beautifully 
and as the crowd started to arrive at 9 a.m. I began a series of 
half-hour mini-lectures and banding demonstrations. Despite tornadic 
winds and an intense series of thunderstorms that temporarily stopped 
our instruction at mid-day, we still managed to capture individual 
hummingbirds from the biggest assemblage the staff has ever seen at 
the nature center. Visitors were truly amazed at the bee-like 
activity around ten 32-ounce feeders that were being drained daily.

On Saturday I held 12 half-hour sessions (using one Ruby-throated 
Hummingbird per session) and instructed more than 600 people in how 
bands are formed; how hummers are measured, aged, and sexed; some 
things we've learned from banding; and hummingbird conservation 
issues. Sunday I followed up with eight more sessions for 400-plus 
visitors.

Nearly all the birds were released by youngsters. Believe it or not, 
one precocious 18-month-old who watches hummingbirds at home was more 
attentive than some of the adults and did a masterful job of letting 
a bird go. (I hope her parents send me a photo to post on the 
Operation RubyThroat Web site.)

Although 20 RTHUs banded is a small sample, it was interesting to see 
that half were adult females. The rest included six HY males, three 
HY females, and one adult male. (We also trapped an AHY female 
(R42904) that was banded by Bob last year at the nature center.) We 
could have trapped many more birds but elected to concentrate on 
education rather than numbers.

Based on my work at Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History 
near York SC, I would have expected to catch far more young males 
than anything else, and I was further surprised that we saw very few 
adult males among the hundreds of birds that congregated around the 
feeders. None of the trapped birds--including the adult male--showed 
any appreciable fat, so I suppose none were quite ready to leave the 
cornucopia of feeders. I suspect things will change over the next 
week or so as migration unfolds.

The employees at Woodlands were wonderful; collectively they were the 
friendliest and most helpful staff I've ever encountered at a nature 
center. Several of them served one-hour stints as scribes so that 
they, too, could get a better understanding of what hummingbird 
banding and research is all about. It's always fulfilling to instruct 
these individuals who will be teaching the public long after we're 
gone from a particular locale.

This weekend I'm off to Fredericksburg VA for the next "Hummingbird 
Mornings" presentations on Saturday, 9 August. Details are at 
http://www.rubythroat.org/HummingbirdMornings03Main.html . Hope to 
see you there.  :-)


Happy Hummingbird Watching!

BILL
-- 

RESEARCH PROGRAM
c/o BILL HILTON JR. Executive Director
Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History
1432 DeVinney Road, York, South Carolina 29745 USA
research@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx, (803) 684-5852, eFax: (503) 218-0845

Please visit our web sites (courtesy of Comporium.net):
Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History at http://www.hiltonpond.org
"Operation RubyThroat: The Hummingbird Project" at http://www.rubythroat.org

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