2008 Hummer House Trip
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.
We continued our travel to check-in with Dan and Cathy Brown at their “Hummer House” Ranch for the next day’s big banding event. We set up our gear and visited with Dan/Cathy and the group already assembling. We next met with Bernie Beck at his ranch along the S. Concho River which was about ½ mile down the road. We netted there for 3 hours with Ross Dawkins in the afternoon and caught another 100 hummers. This very shaded river bottom ranch had lots of hummers, but it appeared breeding was almost finished. We handled 5 adult male and 80 adult female Black-chins. We also caught 18 young of the year.
Rain/thunder rolled through the Concho Valley during the night and deposited about 1 inch of rain. We started catching birds at dawn just after the last shower using about 10 mist-nets near the spring, a dozen nets in the backyard, 2 Russell (mist-net tents) traps, and 3 cage traps. We set up the crew into 3 banding teams. Bob Sargent/Kelly Bryan banded hummers at the guest cottages. Charles Floyd/Ross Dawkins/ Austin & Christian Walker, etc. banded songbirds and Susan Beree & I banded hummers near the residence. Sue Oliver, Sue Ortego, Debra Dawkins, Nancy Floyd, Connie Armstrong, etc. coordinated bird capture and data tallying. Hummingbirds initially came fairly quickly to nets/traps because of recent rains, seed eating birds worked the scattered grain as well and they kept banding crews very busy until noon. The spring nets did not catch many birds early in the morning and it was expected because it primarily attracts birds needing water. The recent rains deposited water everywhere and kept temperatures lower than normal. Bird activity near the buildings dropped off fairly quickly after lunch when it starting getting hot. Cathy/Dan and crew again provided an excellent lunch for the banding crews.
The birds of the day were a male Lucifer’s Hummingbird which was the first record for the Concho Valley, and a very photogenic Red-shouldered Hawk that was caught in a mist-net.
We shut down catching activity at 5:00 p.m. and met goals of processing 1,000 birds during the day and getting a fair assessment of bird populations using the Brown’s mega-feeding stations.
We caught:
| Count | SpeciesCount | Species||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lucifer Hummingbird | ~637 | Black-chinned Hummingbird |
| 1 | Red-shouldered Hawk | 1 | Com. Ground-Dove |
| 4 | W. Wood-Pewee | 1 | White-eyed Vireo |
| 17 | Black-crested Titmouse | 2 | Barn Swallow |
| 1 | Carolina Wren | 1 | Bewick’s Wren |
| 1 | Summer Tanager | 21 | Chipping Sparrow |
| 1 | Rufous-crowned Sparrow | 31 | Lark Sparrow |
| 32 | N. Cardinal | 1 | Blue Grosbeak |
| 241 | Painted Bunting | 8 | House Finch |
| 1 | Pine Siskin | 6 | Lesser Goldfinch |
Leave a Reply