Bird Conservancy of the Rockies - Barr Lake Banding Report, 10/13/21

[Colin Woolley]

It was very cold and frosty this morning, with a number of nets frozen shut. We waited for some thaw and opened nets about 1.5 hours late. While it wasn't a busy day, we did have a few exciting birds including our first-of-season Brown Thrasher. The most exciting bird was a recaptured female Hairy Woodpecker with a very well-worn band. We could tell it was at least a few years old, but were very surprised to look up the band # later and see that it was first banded as a young bird in September 2011!  That puts it at 11 years old now, but we'll have to recapture her again in 2025 to break the longevity record for the species. We also had a recapture Black-capped Chickadee first banded in 2018 and now re-caught each year since. In addition to these 2 recaps from prior years, we had 15 newly-banded birds of 7 species:

Northern 'Red-shafted' Flicker - 1

Brown Thrasher - 1

Ruby-crowned Kinglet - 4

Orange-crowned Warbler - 2

Dark-eyed 'Oregon' Junco - 1

Gambel's White-crowned Sparrow - 3

Mountain White-crowned Sparrow - 1

Song Sparrow - 2

We are open 6 days a week, weather permitting for about 2 more weeks.  Closed Mondays.  Click here to register to visit - we are offering one-hour slots (up to 12 visitors at a time); 8:30-9:30 most weekdays, and 8-9, 9-10, and 10-11 on weekends.  Come visit!

Colin Woolley

Bird Conservancy of the Rockies