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Great Day Banding



You know you've had a great day banding when:

. . . your hand gets pecked by a male Downy Woodpecker

. . . you have to wash all your holding bags--twice

. . . a Tufted Titmouse cleans your cuticles, and then a Carolina 
Chickadee does it again

. . . a female Yellow-throated Vireo flashes you with her highly 
edematous brood patch

. . . three Gray Catbirds curse you in a way only their species has mastered

. . . a Great-crested Flycatcher clacks its bill at you--loudly, and 
with feeling

. . . a female Black-throated Blue Warbler shows why Audubon first 
thought she was a different species from the male

. . . the Brown Thrasher you banded yesterday but forgot to get a 
tail measure for was back in the same net today

. . . a six-year-old Northern Cardinal bites the hand that fed her all winter

. . . an Eastern Phoebe leads you right to her nest after banding

. . . you get pooped on by a Northern Waterthrush AND an Ovenbird AND 
a Carolina Wren

. . . the male Mourning Dove that has been cooing for the last three 
weeks flies gently into a mist net

. . . the last banded bird of the day is a brilliant male Scarlet Tanager


It's times like this that make all those birdless net days seem so worthwhile!


Happy Birding!

BILL


P.S. Photos of most of these feathered jewels will be on the Hilton 
Pond Web site in a day or so. Stay tuned!
-- 

BILL HILTON JR., "The Piedmont Naturalist"
Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History
1432 DeVinney Road, York, South Carolina 29745 USA
hilton@hiltonpond.org, (803) 684-5852, eFax: (503) 218-0845

Please visit our web sites at http://www.hiltonpond.org and
http://www.rubythroat.org

"Never trust a person too lazy to get up for sunrise or too busy to
watch the sunset."					BHjr.