2008 Hill Country BCHU Banding

We finished our last banding run of the season during late June in the eastern Hill Country with the Burditt Ranch feeding 3.7 gallons of sugar water per day, Matter Ranch 1 gallon per day and Wiedenfeld Ranch 2 gallons per day. The breeding season is starting to show signs of winding down with adult males starting to leave the mega feeding stations. Reproduction looked good for the season with all ranches showing about 50% young during the last check and ¾’s of the adult females showing some tail wear which is normally indicative of having fed young. Total capture of birds this season was below those of the record year of 2007 and collectively at least as high as the other previous years. We had one day of strong winds which lowered catch and tallies for the year.

The last round of the season netted two very interesting birds. The first was a male that was banded as a hatch year at Dan Brown’s Hummer House Ranch near Christoval in 2004. It was caught again at that ranch in 2006 and 2007. However, this year they did not catch it at Dan’s, and we caught it at the Burditt Ranch in late June. Our data has shown over the years that males are more prone to switch breeding areas and we suspect this bird did this. The 2^nd bird was banded as an adult female at my Victoria County banding station in October of 2006 and was caught at the Matter Ranch in late June. She was apparently en route to her winter ground when she was caught near the Coast.

Species	Age	Burditt	Matter	Wiedenfeld
Black-chinned Hummingbird	Adult male	43	16	13
	Young male	68	19	34
	Adult female	92	20	24
	Young female	57	14	26
	% YOUNG	48	48	62
	% Tail Wear	71	85	81
Ladder-backed Woodpecker		0	2	0
Canyon Wren		0	2	0
Bewick’s Wren		0	9	0
Black-crested Titmouse		0	9	1
Carolina Chickadee		0	1	0
N. Mockingbird		0	1	0
Rufous-crowned Sparrow		0	1	0
Chipping Sparrow		0	1	0
Field Sparrow		0	9	1
N. Cardinal		0	12	34
Painted Bunting		0	29	26
House Finch		0	34	1
Lesser Goldfinch		0	5	0

BCHU HUMMINGBIRD ANNUAL SUMMARY

Species	2005	2006	2007	2008
BURDITT
AHYM	297	324	409	385
HYM	82	84	96	116
AHYF	320	411	425	392
HYF	41	54	138	83
MATTER
AHYM	210	218	259	188
HYM	52	24	32	27
AHYF	167	213	237	141
HYF	17	16	28	15
WIEDENFELD
AHYM	208	224	398	236
HYM	39	33	30	46
AHYF	240	267	397	294
HYF	20	25	51	32

One of our goals when starting this project was to study reproduction, survival & site fidelity of a large population of hummingbirds until we stopped capturing birds from the beginning. Art & Hanna Richard banded at these 3 ranches in 2001 and 2002. We started our follow up study with annual banding beginning in 2004. We recaptured several of the Richard’s banded birds annually, including 2008, and it looks like we will be continuing this research for at least one more year

We would like to thank the landowners Bob & Sudie Burditt, Annie & Corky Matter, and Sue & Egon Wiedenfeld for managing the birds and inviting us to share this wonderful resource. We thank their friends and family who participated in the banding for showing great interest and love for the hummingbirds. We also thank our banding team which included Susan Beree, Bron Rorex, and Jeff & Suzie Ross.

Brent & Sue Ortego

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