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RFI: Color-marked Hummingbirds



The first Ruby-throated Hummingbird of the year put in an appearance 
at Hilton Pond Center this morning (4 April 2000) and was 
subsequently banded and color-marked. Thus, I am posting my annual 
request for observers to be on the lookout for color-marked RTHU. 
Please post and forward the following announcement to appropriate 
recipients.

**************

      --REQUEST for INFORMATION about SIGHTINGS of COLOR-MARKED HUMMINGBIRDS --

Spring migration of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) 
is under way in the northcentral Piedmont of South Carolina. As part 
of Operation RubyThroat, Bill Hilton Jr. has been banding 
hummingbirds since 1984 at Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural 
History near York, South Carolina (southwest of Charlotte, North 
Carolina). Although the Piedmont seems NOT to be a hummingbird 
migrational pathway or staging area, through 1999 Hilton still 
managed to capture and band 2,120 Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (RTHU), 
and retrapped many of them in subsequent years after banding.

To minimize recapture of banded hummingbirds in his pull-string 
traps, Hilton is authorized by the federal Bird Banding Lab to mark 
each bird from York with non-toxic GREEN dye on the upper breast and 
throat. (In fact, he uses a so-called "permanent" felt-tip marker, 
but the dye wears or washes off within a month or so.) Hilton also 
bands RTHUs at other locations, using BLUE or BROWN dye.

Because we know little about actual overland migrational pathways for 
hummingbirds, observers are asked to report any sightings they may 
have of color-marked hummingbirds during migration in the spring of 
2000.

Color-marking of RTHUs at Hilton Pond paid off in October 1991 when a 
woman in Atlanta saw an "unusual" hummingbird with a green throat and 
called Bob Sargent, a fellow hummingbird bander from Alabama. Bob 
went to Atlanta, trapped the bird, and after reading the band number 
learned it had been banded in South Carolina at Hilton Pond just 10 
days before. This was the first banded RTHU ever to be recaptured and 
released more than 10 miles away from its original banding site.

In Fall 1997, Judy Fruge of Cameron in southwestern Louisiana sighted 
another "green-throated" hummingbird that was likely a RTHU banded at 
Hilton Pond; this sighting further supports the idea that at least 
some East Coast RTHU migrate not to south Florida but to the Texas 
Gulf Coast before a trans-Gulf or Mexican overland crossing. This 
bird may have been the first "long-distance" sighting of a marked 
RTHU. Another green-marked bird was seen in September 1999 east of 
Charlotte NC about 30 miles from Hilton Pond.

If you see a color-marked hummer, do not attempt to trap it (it's 
against federal law to do so unless you have a special permit), but 
please contact Operation RubyThroat and Bill Hilton Jr. via e-mail 
<hilton@rubythroat.org> or by phone at (803) 684-5852. If you find a 
dead banded bird, read the band number and contact both Operation 
RubyThroat and the federal Bird Banding Lab at 1-800-327-BAND or via 
their reporting website page at 
http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bbl/homepage/recwbnd.htm.

Thank you for any help you can provide in taking close looks at 
hummingbirds at your feeders during the spring of 2000, and please 
pass this information to other persons interested in hummingbirds. A 
wealth of information about hummingbirds is available at the 
Operation RubyThroat website: http://www.rubythroat.org and at the 
website for Hilton Pond Center: http://www.hiltonpond.org .


Happy Hummingbird Watching!


**********

BILL HILTON JR., "The Piedmont Naturalist"
Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History
1432 DeVinney Road
York, South Carolina 29745
USA

e-mail: <hilton@hiltonpond.org>

Voice: (803) 684-5852

eFax: (503) 218-0845

Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History is a 501(c)(3) 
non-profit research and education organization, so all in-kind or 
monetary gifts to Operation RubyThroat and the Center are 
tax-deductible. Please visit our websites:

Hilton Pond:  <http://www.hiltonpond.org>

Operation RubyThroat:  <http://www.rubythroat.org>


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

						BHjr.

**********