Two Males Banded (RARY and APRY) and Nest Number Five!

Today we set up a net in R17 along the boardwalk to catch the unbanded male we had seen there earlier. He seemed interested in the playback today, but never flew low enough to hit the net. So we moved the net up onto the nearby hill because we had seen him fly up there. As soon as we moved the net we caught him on the first try and banded him RARY.

We also caught another unbanded male today in H3/4 and banded him APRY. Unfortunately he didn’t really fly away when we let him ago, he just hopped away. He didn’t seem to be visibly hurt, but usually towhees (and most other birds) fly away when you release them. Birds can get wing strain when caught in the net or when being extracted, but that is more likely if the net is tangled tightly around one wing and they are left in the net for longer periods of time. This was not the case for APRY. We removed him from the net immediately and he was not tightly tangled. We will keep an eye out for him the next few days.

Today Adam and I found towhee nest number five! It belongs to ORPA (female) and - - AN (male). It is in W10 near a large clump of Indian Plum. This is the same spot where I saw ORPA carrying leaves a week or so ago! The nest has four eggs.

Every two days we move the motion-activated cameras to a new, random location, swap out the memory card, and place a fresh (if it can be called “fresh”!) fox-urine soaked cotton ball in the ground. Today I moved the camera to a new location. The bottle of fox urine does not seem to seal as well as it did last year. Some of the urine is leaking into the Ziploc bag that the bottle is in, and I’m not too thrilled about putting it back in my backpack!

In M5 we observed - - A- (female) carrying leaves to nest number three under the hazelnut root. In between trips to the nest she seemed to be soliciting copulations by fluttering her wings and making soft calls. Either her mate ignored her or we missed the copulation. This female had no toes on her left leg, so it seems as though “Gimpy” (-Y-A-) has indeed lost her yellow band.

Today we also tried playing the towhee song in a few places to determine who the area belonged to. In Q7 BARO (male) appeared after we broadcasted the towhee song. In T16 - - AO responded by calling, but didn’t come close to the trail. PGPA (female) was with - - AO. Both stayed close to the park edge. In Q8 RRAO (male) was calling, so we didn’t try the playback there.

Today we checked OBAN’s nest, and there were still four eggs.

Right before we were about the leave today we saw AY - - (male) flying all around BBAG’s (male) territory and calling. He was calling in M5, N5, O5, and O6. This was very unusual. I’ve never seen AY- - being so openly defiant of BBAG’s territory boundaries. BBAG was nowhere in sight.