American Robin

I banded this scruffy juvenile American Robin on 10 October.  Most robins have completed their prebasic molt by October.  This bird was either a late hatchling or perhaps had some sort of physiological block to molting into adult plumage. In any event, the spotted juvenile breast spotting clearly allies robins to most other thrushes. (I last blogged about Robins on 13 July 2010.)

Despite banding no robins in June and July, October has been a banner robin month.  The robins are attracted to our water feature. This month I banded 132 robins at my Northfield residence.  For the past week, our little cul-de-sac has been blanketed by hundreds of robins. I previously reported the super low pressure cell that roared across Minnesota with rain and 60 mph wind gusts.  I banded 40 robins in the two days before the storm (24-25 October) and 25 more on the morning of 28 October.  During the two-day storm, the robins remained abundant (but I was marooned indoors). The sun returned the afternoon of the 28th, and many of the robins have departed--on the 29th I banded only 11.

Roxie Laybourne

The highlight of my high school career was being taken under wing by Roxie Laybourne. Every Thursday night, Roxie held court in the bowels of the Smithsonian as she held bird-skinning sessions. I prepared many bird specimens, including an embryonic Whooping Crane, a casualty of the Federal crane recovery program.

Later, after a long day visiting the capitol and the Washington Monument, I introduced Erika to Roxie at a skinning session. Erika declined Roxie’s invitation to skin a bird. Roxie took me aside and said, “This isn’t the girl for you.” But years later apologized and said she had been mistaken; perhaps after visiting us in Ecuador and seeing Erika sew the head back on a poor shot up Pygmy Tyrannulet—a flycatcher no bigger than a thumb. The photo above shows Roxie and Erika, when Roxie visited us in the Ecuadorian jungle.

During one of my college jobs, I did a stint with Roxie at the National Museum. I banded my first birds that semester in the woods near Washington. My first bird was an Ovenbird, banded near a drug deal being consummated nearby. Banding at Roxie’s was much preferable! One of my banded birds, a Red-bellied Woodpecker, became the oldest on record, at 13 years.

When they were young, my sons realized that Roxie was famous when she was interviewed by Big Bird on Sesame Street. Late in her career, Roxie realized that birds could be identified by microscopic examination of single feathers.  She became a forensic specialist for the FBI and also studied bird strikes by aircraft. Most importantly, she inspired a host of young people who later became ornithologists.

Ancient Murrelet

With 55 mph gusts and possibly the lowest air pressure in Minnesota history expected over the next two days, the first and only record of an Ancient Murrelet in South Dakota comes to mind.  A farmer in Ipswich, in the north-central South Dakota, found the bird in November 1993 after a snow storm. Ancient Murrelets feed off the Pacific shore of North America. They breed in burrows along the coasts of British Columbia and Alaska; they winter further south to the California coast.  The storm that brought this murrelet originated in the North Pacific was exceptionally large. 

The bird died soon after being found.  The body was given to Dave Williams, who, in turn, gave it to me.  I prepared the carcass as a museum specimen, and sent to the U.S. National Museum.  I have never encountered a more emaciated bird. Williams wrote up an account of this discovery in South Dakota Bird Notes (46:34) and mentions that six records of this species exist for Minnesota (and at least two of the somewhat similar Dovekie).

South Dakota birders had been on the lookout for an auk, the family to which murrelets belong.  Laura Ingalls Wilder, in her autobiographical classic, The Long Winter, reported her father's finding a strange bird after an October 1880 blizzard.  After the storm, they released the bird, which they tentatively identified as a Great Auk (but which, based on her description, was probably a murrelet or a Dovekie) (Steve Van Sickle (1988) South Dakota Bird Notes (40:95-96)).

John Trott

John Trott was my seventh grade teacher. I joke that, in his class, you didn’t have to learn math or English, but you did have to learn to identify birds. John banded birds and his students could help, if they passed a written exam. The exam was a page long, but all answers had to be spelled correctly.

“What does AOU stand for?”

“American Ornithologist’s Onion.”

It took me three tries to pass. John once commented that he thought people don’t change after the seventh grade. He may be right—I still can’t spell.

I am surprised how little of an Internet presence John has. He died in September 2000. I came to his class in 1960. I know this date because I have bird lists back until then. I was 14.

John was like no teacher I had ever had before. John was temperamental, unpredictable, gossipy, and an opera lover. Aside from learning about birds, we also made an extensive plant collection. Although I was not aware of it, this learning was hands-on and peer-mentored. John also read to us. He asked my parents’ permission for me to read an x-rated book, “The Big Sky,” about trappers in frontier South Dakota. Little did I know that I would grow up to teach in that state for almost 30 years. The point here is that John treated us seventh-graders as adults.

Banded Birds

During the past year I observed several banded birds in the wild.  This banded Snowy Plover was among a dozen on the beach at Sanibel Island, Florida, last January.  All sported a different combination of color bands. I also came upon this banded first-year Great Black-backed Gull.

I took photos of the front and the back of the band, hoping to decipher the number. I then conitnued to walk down the beach.  On the way back, I came upon the gull again and took more photos.

I was disappointed that the front and back of the band photos do not reveal enough of the band to know the complete number.

Today I enlarged the photo of the photo I took upon our return hike (the first photograph on this post).  To my amazement, this is a completely different band from the first!  The band is far more worn, with almost eligible writing on the top and the bottom.  It is the same dead fish, but a different first-year Great Black-backed Gull feasted on it! Most gulls are banded as chicks; the closest breeding areas to Florida for Great Black-backs is the New Jersey coast.

Last May I blogged "Less than 1% of banded songbirds are recovered. Since the 1960s, in both Europe and North America, band reporting rates have declined.  Robert A. Robinson, Mark J. Grantham and Jacquie A. Clark wrote a paper entitled "Declining rates of ring recovery in British birds" (2009 British Trust for Ornithology, Ringing and Migration 24:266–272). They suggest people spend less time outdoors and therefore find fewer dead birds and, when they do find bands, they do not know where to send the information.  I think Americans these days may be less likely, for whatever reasons, to cooperative with the Federal government."

A colleague added, " I think another factor that might be involved is that the BBL [Bird Banding Lab] is not issuing permits to recreational banders anymore, and is requiring additional work/justification for renewals of current permits. Thus, I suspect that fewer total birds are being banded than previously, and that this likely contributes to fewer reported returns too."

Finally, another potential problem, for whatever reasons, is the length of time the BBL can take when responding to recovery reports.  Almost a year has passed without a reply from them on the color-banded plovers and over a year without a report on the banded oystercatcher I blogged about in October 2009.  Perhaps the Banding Office will be better able to promptly respond once they update their database, a project they are currently pursuing.

The BBL allows people to report bands electronically at http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bbl/homepage/call800. and also by toll free phone: 1-800-327-BAND (2263).

Ring-billed Gull

Ord in 1815 first described the Ring-billed Gull from the Delaware River near Philadelphia, hence its scientific name, Larus delawarensis.  A great book is Words for Birds, which describes the origins of American bird names, and can be obtained at bargain prices from the the link on the right of this page. The species is quite common across most of the mid-section of North America. 

The Ring-billed Gull is abundant in Minnesota.  They inhabit garbage dumps,  fields, and our numerous lakes. Its hard to believe this gull was almost exterminated by the 1920s. Although still often considered a pest, obviously the species has recovered. Even now, however, control efforts are occasionally attempted. Ring-billed Gulls eat about anything, including insects, earthworms, fish, rodents, and grain. The birds in these photos foraged in a park for picnic scraps in Stillwater, Minnesota.

This species is usually monogamous.  However, when females outnumber males, the males will fertilize females who will then form pairs with other females.  Both females in these pairs lay clutches in the same nest and raise the young (Ryder 1993).

The Ring-billed Gulls in these photos appear to be adults in winter plumage.  This gull takes three years to reach adult plumage.  First-year birds are dusky.  Second-year birds lack the large spots that you can see on the wing tips in the photo above. As you can see by the differing amount of streaking on their heads, even birds in similar plumage, as in these photos, can be variable. Add to that variation the various plumages through which the gulls pass, and you can see that identification can be tricky.  Gulls of North America, Europe, and Asia (inexplicably very expensive) and Gulls of the Americas are good books for gull identification.  Note the deformed lower bill on the photo below--the lower mandible is longer than the upper one.

Painted Lady

The wide-ranging Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) is found on all continents except Australia and Antarctica.  They invade North America every spring from northern Mexico, almost reaching northern Canada.  These butterflies, although relatively cold-tolerant, do not survive the northern winter, and re-invade our region every spring.  Last week I found this individual at a local farm.  Much of this information is from the Field Guide to Butterflies of South Dakota by Gary Marrone, and published by the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks in 2002.

Yellow-throated Vireo

I banded this gorgeous Yellow-throated Vireo on Sunday, 10 October 2010 and have saved this post for today, this blog's first birthday.  According to Birds of Minnesota, this date is late for this species.  The book also mentions that this species has been increasing to the north and west.  I have previously blogged about this species on 20 July 2010.


Book-loving birders may be interested in the classic, two-volume The Birds of Minnesota by Thomas Roberts.  I often consult this book when I am curious as to what races of birds have been recorded in Minnesota. Two editions were published, one in 1932, with a revision in 1936.  Even then this vireo was thought to be expanding its range northward, so this trend appears to be in progress for some time.  Roberts cites no October records.

Kim Eckert advises, "If you find a set of Roberts' for sale somewhere at $100 or so, buy it."  An autographed copy is available at Amazon.  Be careful that you do not get a key to identification that Roberts also wrote (unless, of course, your are interested in antique Minnesota bird books).

Eastern Gray Squirrel

Eastern Gray Squirrels are abundant in our Minnesota backyard.  I never saw one in South Dakota.  According to the book Wild Mammals of South Dakota, Eastern Gray Squirrels should occur along the eastern tier of South Dakota counties but are only known from Roberts County, in the far northeast of the state. Museum specimens exist from Minnehaha Co.

This squirrel hoards food in hundreds of small caches, to which the squirrels return months later. Wikipedia informs us that the squirrels have very accurate spatial memories for the locations of these caches.  They use both distant and nearby landmarks to find the caches again. These squirrels usually make leaf nests in tree forks, but will also nest in tree holes and in human habitations.  They breed twice a year.  As we well know in Minnesota, Eastern Gray Squirrels do not hibernate.

Woolly Bear Predicts Warm Winter!

According to folklore, you can predict how bad winter will be by observing Woolly Bear Caterpillars.  If the caterpillar sports a narrow brown stripe, and broad black stripes on the front and the back, then winter will be bad.  If the caterpillar has a broad brown stripe, winter will be mild.  Since this Woolly Bear Caterpillar lacks black, we should be in for a great winter!  Research, unfortunately, has not documented the folklore.  Apparently the brown stripe becomes narrower with age (Oehlke).