Methow Valley Bird Banding 2021 – End of Year Report

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The 2021 MAPS banding season came to an abrupt end shortly after the July 15th banding session. Two wildfires in the area, Cedar Creek and Cub Creek 2, were growing in size and producing a lot of unhealthy smoke. Given the uncertainty of the situation, I made the difficult decision to cancel the last two banding sessions and dismantle the station. Thankfully the Cedar Creek Fire never reached the MAPS station. The firefighters have done an amazing job protecting structures and containing both fires. The map below shows the boundaries of the Cedar Creek and Cub Creek 2 fires in relation to the banding station as of August 11th.

Cedar Creek and Cub Creek 2 Fires, 11 August 2021. Map by Southwest Area Incident Management Team 2.

Most juvenile birds are captured during the last two MAPS sessions near the end of the breeding season. Identifying juveniles can be tricky, because many species look much different as juveniles than adults. Since we missed out on seeing a lot of juveniles this year, I thought I’d share a few pictures to illustrate some of the differences. (The juvenile descriptions are from Identification Guide to North American Birds, Part 1 by Peter Pyle https://www.birdpop.org/pages/moltAndPlumage.php.)

A juvenile Spotted Towhee has buffy-brown, streaked body plumage and a grayish-brown iris. The iris will gradually become red as the bird matures. Photos by Julie Hovis.
The Red-eyed Vireo is another species that has a grayish-brown iris as a juvenile. Photos by Julie Hovis.
Juvenile American Redstarts have brownish upperparts, grayish underparts, and two yellowish wing bars. Male American Redstarts do not obtain their distinctive black and orange plumage until they are two years old. Photos by Julie Hovis.
Juvenile Song Sparrows are drabber and buffier than adults with diffuse streaking on the face and underparts. They also have less distinctive facial and crown stripes and lack the rusty tones to the crown and back. Photos by Julie Hovis.

For reasons that are not easily explained, fewer birds were captured in 2021 than in previous years. At the end of the fifth (and final) banding session, we only had captured 61 birds. Even if the last two sessions had been conducted, it would have been almost impossible to reach the numbers captured in 2019 or 2020. Perhaps the low numbers are related to the die-off that happened in the southwestern U.S. last year during fall migration (https://www.audubon.org/news/study-starvation-and-freak-snow-storm-caused-southwests-mass-bird-die). It will be interesting to see how many birds find their way into the nets next season.

Methow Valley MAPS Banding Station Results, 2019-2021. Recaptured Previously Banded (R) includes same day recaptures, same year recaptures, and recaptures of birds banded in previous years. Unbanded (U) includes birds that escaped before they were banded and hummingbirds (which I am not authorized to band). Brown-headed Cowbird was the only new species captured in 2021.

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