This website will cover bird related activities of the Ortego Family living within Texas. Banding activities with The Texas Bird Banding Team, Christmas Bird Counts and Breeding Bird Surveys will make up most of the activities.

Claudia Dorn, Jerry Gips, Jimmy Jackson, Brent Ortego and Bron Rorex mist-netted birds at the Dobie Ranch in Live Oak County from 24-26 October 2008. This is the 4^th year in a row mist-netting has been used to survey the avifauna of this ranch in late October. Weather was very nice with nights dropping into the low 50’s and highs in the 80’s with relatively light winds. 28 species and 246 birds were captured and are both records for the ranch.

2007 was a fairly wet year leading into a very dry 2008 making for a fairly dense, but dry herbaceous community. 5 water features provided by the landowner has made a major positive difference in the abundance of select species (GKIS, GREJ & NOCA) on the ranch to thrive in drought conditions.

Red-shouldered Hawk, Ladder-backed Woodpecker, Black-and-White Warbler and White-crowned Sparrow were new species banded on the ranch. Neither of these are surprising captures, but are just hard to catch at this site.

Com. Ground-Dove, Golden-fronted Woodpecker, Great Kiskadee, Green Jay, N. Mockingbird, Long-billed Thrasher, Orange-crowned Warbler, N. Cardinal, Pyrrhuloxia and Audubon’s Oriole were call caught at well above average rates.

A list of species captured are provided below:

MIST-NET HOURS	430	420	571	829	684
SPECIES	10/05	3/06	10/06	10/07	10/8
SSHA	0	0	2	0	0
COHA	0	1	0	0	0
RSHA	0	0	0	0	1
NOBO	0	0	0	2 unbanded
MODO	0	1	1	1	0
COGD	0	2	43	1	16
WTDO	0	0	0	2	0
EASO	1	0	0	0	0
PAUR	0	1	0	1	1
WPWI	0	0	1	0	0
RTHU	0	0	0	1	0
GFWO	4	5	0	5	11
LBWO	0	0	0	0	1
EAPH	3	1	9	2	5
GKIS	2	3	0	0	8
WEVI	5	2	11	15	6
GREJ	14	5	10	13	30
CARW	2	2	1	2	0
BEWR	2	2	6	12	3
HOWR	0	0	6	3	0
WIWR	0	0	1	0	0
BCTI	1	4	5	6	10
GCKI	0	0	2	0	0
RCKI	6	3	7	1	4
BGGN	0	3	1	2	1
VERD	3	0	2	2	1
HETH	1	1	12	0	2
GRCA	0	0	1	0	1
NOMO	10	35	4	10	19
BRTH	1	0	0	0	0
LBTH	2	1	8	13	19
NAWA	0	0	5	1	1
OCWA	3	0	7	1	11
BAWW	0	0	0	0	2
HOWA	0	1	0	0	0
OLSP	2	0	1	19	5
SPTO	0	0	1	0	0
FISP	0	1	0	0	0
LASP	0	2	0	1	3
LISP	3	1	6	9	1
WCSP	0	0	0	0	1
NOCA	10	51	34	46	71
PYRR	3	0	2	8	8
PABU	0	0	0	1	0
INBU	0	0	0	1	0
AUOR	1	0	0	0	3
SPECIES	21	22	27	28	28
TOTAL	79	128	189	177	246

In addition to individuals captured, a number of additional species were observed on the ranch that were potentially available for capture:

Wild Turkey	Mourning Dove
N. Bobwhite	White-tipped Dove
Turkey Vulture	Greater Roadrunner
Sharp-shinned Hawk	E. Screech-Owl
Cooper’s Hawk	Great Horned Owl
Harris’s Hawk	Barred Owl
Red-tailed Hawk	Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
Crested Caracara	Meadowlark sp.
Am Kestrel

Brent Ortego

The Texas Bird Banding Team

2008 FALL BANDING

At Ortego - Zalk

We had a busy fall at the banding station in Victoria County.  Weather was generally dry and warmer than normal.  Hurricanes threatened the area twice to the north and once from the south.  We were fortunate those major storms missed us, but weather patterns were extremely dry.

Feeder birds occurred in numbers above average because of dry conditions, but my hernia surgery at the peak of Ruby-throat migration in mid September caused capture of much lower numbers of this species than expected.

We caught much higher numbers of Red-eyed Vireos and Empids than previous years.  Many of these individuals were concentrating on fruits of swamp dogwood at the station.

Western hummingbirds only showed up in light numbers.  We had two Rufous and 1 Allen’s from past years show up in August.  We were also delighted with the capture of a Calliope.  The Calliope migration to the area varies from year to year.  Most years they seem to not stray south of I-10 and we miss out seeing these tiny birds.  In other years we will get several to over-winter.  This Calliope arrived at an early August date and did not stay.  This was not surprising since most western hummers arriving early are still searching for their perceived winter ground.

We had a nice surprise when a young Allen’s I banded on 9/30/8 was captured by banding team member Charlie Brower at his home on 10/6/8.  The rest of the Team had a variety of foreign recaptures of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds this fall.  Jim Renfro banding in Houston County caught birds originally banded in Illinoies and Missouri.  Bron Rorex banding in Rockport caught a bird originally banded in North Carolina 10 days earlier, and we received a report of a banded bird found by a home owner near Sugarland that was originally banded at LeCompte, LA.

I would like to thank Sue Ortego, Bron Rorex and Susan Beree for assistance with the banding this Fall.

TOTAL BANDED = 1928 with 919 RECAPTURE EVENTS

INDO              3

YBCU             1

BUFH              95

RTHU              1370

BCHU             15

RUHU             4

ALHU              2

CAHU             1

YBFL              6

ACFL              1

WIFL               4

ALFL               35

TRFL               81

LEFL               7

EAPH              2

GCFL              2

WEVI              24

REVI               13

WAVI              1

BHVI               1

CARW            6

HOWR            12

ETTI                0

CACH             8

RCKI               1

BGGN             4

HETH              1

GRCA             3

NOMO            3

LBTH              3

NAWA            23

OCWA            2

YWAR            4

BAWW           1

MOWA           10

HOWA            1

WIWA             31

CAWA            1

COYE             7

YBCH             28

SUTA              3

CHSP              1

LISP                8

NOCA             70

BLGR              1

INBU               16

PABU              7

OROR             3

BAOR             2

2008 Hummer House Trip

19-23 June

Sue and I left Victoria at 3:30 a.m to meet Ann Lemon at her ranch near Segovia to sample her hummers. We enjoyed visiting with Ann and catching Black-chins with a hill top view. Many Painted Buntings and other seed eaters visited her grain feeders while we worked the hummers. Our sample goal was 100 which we achieved by 10 a.m. Her population appeared to have slowed down in breeding for the season because only 26 of 57 adults were male. The normal sex ratio is 1:1 and males tend to leave when they do not get enough attention. 67% of adult females showed tail wear indicating they probably fed young and 17% of our sample was comprised of young birds. 13 of the adults captured had been banded during previous trips. We ate a nice breakfast at one of the best Junction restaurants and watched a waitress balance raw eggs on their ends which is reported as to be only possible during the summer solstice.

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We caught 636 Black-chinned Hummingbirds on 20 June 2008 at the Brown Ranch. This was the 2^nd highest hummingbird catch for the Ranch. Songbirds were much lower than normal (<400) and their scarcity allowed banders to focus more intensively on catching hummers. We recaptured about 88 hummers from previous years. This was the 3rd year in a row of lower than expected production of young. There was a severe hail storm during spring 2006 that probably killed birds, there was a major freeze in early April 2007 that probably destroyed all nesting attempts at the time. 2008 had much lower rainfall than normal which should lead to lower production and higher dependency of birds on feeders. Adult male to female sex ratios was about 45% male which is about normal for this site and date. It contrasts greatly with ratios from neighboring ranches and shows the significance of this property by being able to support reproduction of high densities of birds late into the season. Win and Beck ranches nearby feeders had a much higher percent of adult females and indicates that breeding is finishing up for the season earlier at these sites than at the Hummer House.

 

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