4,000 miles by Rufous Hummingbird!

The July Gulf Coast Bird Observatory newsletter contained this gem:

Last January 13, Fred Dietrich, a hummingbird bander, put a numbered band on a Rufous Hummingbird that was coming to a feeder at a home in Tallahassee Florida. Fred determined that it was a second year female, meaning it had been hatched the previous summer. Fast forward to June 28. In Chenega Bay Alaska, Kate McLaughlin caught a Rufous Hummingbird with someone else's band on it. Yep, you guessed it - it was Fred's bird from Florida! This little hummingbird was nesting nearly 4,000 miles from where she spent the winter. Wow! Rufous Hummingbirds (along with several other species) commonly spend their winter in the southeastern U.S. including Texas. This recovery is significant as the longest distance between capture sites but also because it gives us information about migration routes of these birds. Without banding, we would never know these things. Leave your hummingbird feeder up this winter and see if you get a special winter visitor.

This is backdated; I'd have posted it when I got it, but I've been monitoring (you guessed it!) banded birds in west Texas!

Another fantastic blog post about this record is at burdr.com - check it out!

Baby Pictures

This post was originally featured at seetrail under the title Camp Eagle. It has been slightly edited for relevance. -h

Swapping e-mails with a supportive and enthusiastic researcher certainly does seem reminiscent of swapping family photos - except our exchange started with blurry through-binoculars pictures. Funny, I'd hope that most family photos are a bit more direct than a stealthy drive-by 10x zoom plus 8x42 bins... it's more like espionage than a Christmas card photo.

Still, in a way it's like having an old friend and comparing baby pictures:



A photo of Anakin enjoying a ride in the jeep. Awww.

And here's Brian's little one:



Here's a pic from the day she was fitted with an transmitter. The falconry hood assists in keeping the eaglet calm during the fitting process.

Since this project is ultimately not hands-on except for the fitting, it's neat to see that others contribute photos as well:



Photographed in South Miami-Dade county. [...] The eaglet sighting and photograph was taken by Katy Raits in November 2007.

...it's exciting to hear back about the bird you've spotted, but it's remarkably awesome to know that the life history of the critter is not only being documented, but shared with innocent bystanders who take the time and effort to look into the sightings. I guess that makes us part of the "Camp Eagle" fan club - and by extension, our readers get to be subjected to our enthusiastic whims :)

Perhaps other couples experience this kind of nostalgia, when they open an e-mail from a researcher whose bird they saw... two weeks ago. Hey, you've gotta start somewhere!

When looking at a Bald Eagle with a fully white head and tail, you know the bird is at least 4 years old; young ones have varying degrees of light patches but are predominantly dark.