Methow Valley School Nestboxes: Season 2

Posted on August 18, 2022 by Janet Bauer

In mid April of 2021, middle school shop students built and put up twenty two nest boxes around the Methow Valley school grounds. That first nesting season, the nest boxes in the open areas near the school garden were successfully used by Western Bluebirds, Tree Swallows, and House Wrens. The nest boxes in the surrounding forest areas went largely unused with no active nests seen.

The spring and summer of 2022 tells a different story. The nest boxes in the forest were discovered! By the end of April, one box had a White-Breasted Nuthatch sitting on 5 eggs, four boxes had active Pygmy Nuthatch nests, and four more had active Mountain Chickadee nests. The wooded school grounds were thinned several years ago for fire protection with many of the natural nesting sites for cavity nesting birds removed. This spring it appeared that these secondary cavity nesting birds were hungry for nest sites and it was a joy to see them make use of the boxes.

Mountain Chickadee peers out of its nest hole

House Wrens were busy in both wooded and open areas placing twigs in numerous nest boxes. They eventually claimed four boxes. Western Bluebirds and Tree Swallows once again each chose a nest box near the school garden and were quite tolerant of nearby human activity. The White-breasted Nuthatches were feeding 5 young by mid-May and they all fledged successfully by the end of May.

Western Bluebird with a fresh catch for its newborns

White-breasted Nuthatch brings a morsel for its young

June was a busy month with the Pygmy Nuthatches and Mountain Chickadees fledging many young from their boxes.

A large brood of 7 Mountain Chickadees fills the box

The Western Bluebirds fledged their first brood by late June, with the Tree swallows fledging in early July. The bluebirds returned (presumably the same pair) and built another nest in an adjacent nest box. They were once again feeding young by late July. Fortunately the brood survived 100+ degree weather and successfully fledged just a week ago.

Summer day camps were held at the school garden and it was fun for the children to see the different types of nests built by the different species. A highlight is always watching young faces light up at the sight of baby birds in a nest box. It was a productive season for the Methow Valley school grounds with nearly 80 young birds flying out of boxes into the world!

Methow Valley Bird Banding 2021 – End of Year Report

Posted on August 16, 2021 by Julie Hovis

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.

Methow Valley Bird Banding Update – 12 July 2021

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Julie Hovis

Beginner Bird Banding Class, June 2021. Photo by Jackie Hovis.

The 2021 Methow Valley banding season has been very busy. It started in early June when I hosted a five-day beginner bird banding class. The class was supported by NCWAS and taught by Danielle Kaschube. Danielle works for the Institute for Bird Populations and coordinates their MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship) banding program. (You can learn more about the MAPS program by visiting the Institute for Bird Populations’ web site.)

Morning banding session. Photo by Julie Hovis

The class was fast-paced and covered a lot of material, which made for some very long days! Starting at sunrise the students spent several hours mist netting and banding captured birds. Skills taught during the morning banding sessions included the operation of mist nets and safe extraction of birds, bird-handling skills, and in-hand ageing and sexing techniques. In the afternoon they attended classroom lectures where the topics of banding ethics, the permitting process, and avian plumages and molt strategies were discussed. By all accounts the class was a success. Everyone (including me!) learned a lot, and the students have been applying what they learned by volunteering at my MAPS station.

Learning to band and process birds. Photo by Julie Hovis.

To date, four of the seven required MAPS sessions have been completed and 54 birds representing 21 different species have been captured. One of the goals of the MAPS program is to determine survival rates, so it is both exciting and informative when we recapture a bird that was banded in a previous year. So far this year we have recaptured five birds originally banded in 2019 (the year the station was started): one Warbling Vireo, two Swainson’s Thrush, one MacGillivray’s Warbler, and one Yellow Warbler.

Swainson’s Thrush photo by Jackie Hovis. All other photos by Julie Hovis.

All of these birds are Neotropical migrants. I can’t say exactly where they migrated to each winter, but range maps and e-Bird records show their nonbreeding ranges include Central America. Hypothetically speaking, if they migrated as far south as Costa Rica, these birds have made the one-way trip of ±3,600 miles between their winter and breeding grounds at least five times. That is beyond amazing!