Howdy Humbanders,
The winter hummingbird banding season, my 45th, has come to a close. I
still have not seen any incoming RTHU at my place in southeastern Louisiana,
but quite a few are being reported to me. Although there are still some
winterers around, it is time to move on. Assistant Matthew Dell and I made
a final push the first week of March with trips to Donaldsonville and to
Baton Rouge.
Had I not needed to put my 14-year old Honda Odyssey in the shop for some
urgent repairs, I would probably have snagged a few more but I needed to
get the van taken care of . . . and some family matters need my attention.
Those last 2 trips were especially interesting. At the home of a retired
pharmacist in Donaldsonville we first caught a RUHU and at least 2 or 3
more teased us by hanging out in a couple of huge Coral Honeysuckle plants.
So, we left a couple of open traps in place and went about 5 miles down the
highway to another site, home of the pharmacist's sister. She had at least
3 hummers, but our sole catch was another RUHU.
We returned to the original site and managed to snag 2 more birds before
heading home . . . and to my surprise, the last one was a young female
ALHU. My first in about 2 years.
The following day, we trekked up to Baton Rouge to cover a couple of sites
. . . We only saw RUHU at the first site and caught 2 of them.
The next place was initially disappointing because a large tract of
adjacent woodland had been cleared. However, the folks were very welcoming
and there were a few hummers. We got a RUHU pretty quickly and then had a
substantial wait before we got a young male RTHU. After banding, I
color-marked him pink and released him.
Interestingly, that last bird gave us a nice surprise by showing up and
being photographed at another home that is about 1 mile from the banding
site the very next day. We never know what information we'll get from
these little guys so it is worthwhile to keep on putting those numbered
aluminum bracelets on 'em.
Titanium Nan
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Nancy L Newfield
Casa Colibrí
Metairie, Louisiana USA
nancy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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