Old Junco!
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Steven Brown
Jan 25, 2025, 4:45:04 PM1/25/25
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Hey COBirders,
I don’t usually share info on recaptured juncos, but this one was pretty cool.
I regularly capture various banded juncos returning to winter in my yard in NW Colorado Springs, most years 10-15 returning banded birds. Pretty good site fidelity. This winter has been pretty sparse, I think due to the mild weather we have had until recently. In any event, I had only captured about 7 this winter. Today, in the snow, I’ve caught 5 from previous years, not seen until today. One was a male Slate-colored Junco, with a number I didn’t recognize. Looking back year after year in my data I finally found him - banded 11/7/2018 as a hatch-year bird. That may be the oldest recapture I’ve encountered. Seven years has to be pretty phenomenal for a junco!
(FYI - no net up in the snow - these are caught in baited cages on my deck)
One more unusual one I’ll share since you got this far.
October 2023 I banded an Oregon Junco at Clear Spring Ranch. No big deal.
In November I got a notice from the Bird Banding Lab that it had been recaptured across Ft Carson, off Highway 115 two weeks later, and reported. (I still don’t know the particulars there - was it by a bander?) I assumed it was found dead. Still unusual that a junco I'd banded would show up somewhere else and be recognized.
Fast forward to January 2024 - I am looking through banding data from the fall and came across a familiar band number. Turns out in December I caught the same bird in my backyard, 25 miles from those previous sites! That was a first. How did it find me???
Have a good weekend,
Steve Brown
Colo Spgs
Mountain Shadows neighborhood
I don’t usually share info on recaptured juncos, but this one was pretty cool.
I regularly capture various banded juncos returning to winter in my yard in NW Colorado Springs, most years 10-15 returning banded birds. Pretty good site fidelity. This winter has been pretty sparse, I think due to the mild weather we have had until recently. In any event, I had only captured about 7 this winter. Today, in the snow, I’ve caught 5 from previous years, not seen until today. One was a male Slate-colored Junco, with a number I didn’t recognize. Looking back year after year in my data I finally found him - banded 11/7/2018 as a hatch-year bird. That may be the oldest recapture I’ve encountered. Seven years has to be pretty phenomenal for a junco!
(FYI - no net up in the snow - these are caught in baited cages on my deck)
One more unusual one I’ll share since you got this far.
October 2023 I banded an Oregon Junco at Clear Spring Ranch. No big deal.
In November I got a notice from the Bird Banding Lab that it had been recaptured across Ft Carson, off Highway 115 two weeks later, and reported. (I still don’t know the particulars there - was it by a bander?) I assumed it was found dead. Still unusual that a junco I'd banded would show up somewhere else and be recognized.
Fast forward to January 2024 - I am looking through banding data from the fall and came across a familiar band number. Turns out in December I caught the same bird in my backyard, 25 miles from those previous sites! That was a first. How did it find me???
Have a good weekend,
Steve Brown
Colo Spgs
Mountain Shadows neighborhood
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