2008 Hill Country Banding

Our team of banders will be visiting cooperating landowners with mega feeding stations during the breeding season again this year. We will be visiting our good friends Bob & Sudie Burditt near Leakey in Real County, Annie & Corky Matter and Egon & Sue Widenfeld near Comfort in Kendall County once each month. We will also be visiting Dan and Cathy Brown’s Hummer House in Tom Green County during June. Our main focus will be continuing research on Black-chinned Hummingbird site fidelity and breeding success. We will also be banding songbirds at these sites and at other conservation areas.

Our first trip was made by Brent & Sue Ortego from 12-13 April 2008. Temperature ranged from 40-75 during each day with 15-25 mph north winds. We conducted 4-hour banding sessions at each ranch which is what is usually done each year. We used 2 modified Russell Traps at Burditt Ranch, 1 modified Russell & 1 Hall Trap and 2 6-meter nets at Matter Ranch, and 2 modified Russell & 1 Hall Trap, and 1 6-meter net at Widenfeld Ranch.

We caught:

SPECIES	BURDITT	MATTER	WIEDENFELD
Black-chinned Hummingbird	201	116	136
Carolina Chickadee	0	1	0
Spotted Towhee	0	0	1
Chipping Sparrow	0	9	5
Field Sparrow	0	2	0
Lincoln’s Sparrow	0	0	8
White-crowned Sparrow	0	1	19
House Finch	0	7	7

BLACK-CHINNED HUMMINGBIRDS

Artied and Hanna Richard originally banded at these ranches from 2000 - 2002 and we are still recapturing some of the birds they originally banded. Our research started in 2004.

One exciting band return during this trip was a female originally banded at Matter Ranch in 2006, recaptured there in 2007 and recaptured this year at Burditt Ranch which is about 50 miles SW of Comfort. We will be looking for this female to determine if she stayed at Burditt or continued her migration to Matter.

Burditt Ranch

We banded 99 males and recaptured 25 from previous years, and banded 50 females and recaptured 27 females during the morning. Female return rates are consistently higher than males and this ranch is feeding almost 2 gallons of sugar water per day.

Matter Ranch

We banded 54 males and recaptured 17, and banded 29 females and recaptured 16 in the afternoon. This ranch is feeding about ½ gallon per day.

Wiedenfeld Ranch

We banded 49 males and recaptured 22, and banded 31 females and recaptured 34 in the morning. This ranch is feeding about ½ gallon per day.

RECAPTURES

About the same number of birds are banded each year and number recaptured gives us an indication of survival and site fidelity at each of the ranches. Survival of Black-chins by studies like this one at mega feeding stations are showing that small hummingbirds survive much longer than previously believed. Banding results from this first trip of the season was very similar to 2007. There is a noticeable reduction in recaptures at every ranch during the 2^nd year following banding which is either mortality or dispersal related.

	Burditt		Matter		Wiedenfeld
Banding year	boy	girl	boy	girl	boy	girl
2002	0	3	0	0	1	1
2005	6	2	3	2	2	5
2007	15	17	11	12	15	17

We again would like to thank our Ranch Host for their providing food and lodging during our trip, their management of our hummingbird resources and their special friendship.

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