FreeLists / va-richmond-general / [va-richmond-general] Final 2006 Summary on the Dutch Gap Prothonotary Project

["Bob Reilly" <rjreilly@xxxxxxx>]

It was a fantastic year for prothonotary warblers at our Dutch Gap nest box 
site.  We banded 620 new prothonotaries at Dutch Gap this year, eclipsing the 
previous record of 421 set in 2005.  The 620 figure is higher than the record 
years at either of the older sites at Presquile NWR or Deep Bottom Park.  In 
addition ,we caught 95 returned adult breeders from previous years at Dutch 
Gap.   The 620 includes a remarkable 514 nestlings.

The breakdown of newly banded birds for the 2006 breeding season at Dutch gap 
is as follows:

9      Older females                         
3      Older males     
16     females in first breeding season   
2      males in first breeding season  
39    dispersing juvenile males  
30   dispersing juvenile females 
7     dispersing juveniles of unknown sex 
514  nestlings 
620 total newly banded

The breakdown of returned adult breeders is a follows:

53 older returning females
25 older returning males (but much harder to catch)
12 females who were nestlings in the project last year and returned as breeders 
this year
 5  males who were nestlings in the project last year and returned as breeders 
this year
95 returned adult breeders

In addition, we had 4 new foreign encounters of birds that were raised as 
nestlings at the Deep Bottom site (5 miles away):
3 older adult female breeders and 1 dispersing juvenile female

Two graduate students at VCU did masters thesis field work at Dutch Gap this 
season:  Catherine Heinrich, who is studying potential extra pair paternity in 
prothonotary warbler clutches, and Dee Moyer who is studying survivorship and 
dispersal during the post-fledging period. In the course of her work this 
season, Dee was able to recapture a remarkable 23% (118 of the 514) of our 
banded nestlings as dispersing juveniles at distances up to a mile from their 
natal box.!  

Finally, 16 successful chickadee clutches and 3 tree swallow clutches were 
raised in the boxes as well.   All but a handful of the 131 boxes were used and 
many of them supported multiple clutches.  It is likely that next year we will 
expand the project by a few more boxes.

The project's come a long way from the 43 birds banded in the first year of 
operation (2002), and it's is an special pleasure to greet the returning adult 
breeders each year, a number of whom we've seen for several years in a row. 
It's particularly humbling to contemplate that the bird you're holding has once 
again survived a migratory round trip of up to 5000 miles through untold perils 
to return to its chosen nest box. 

Bob Reilly