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Hummingbird recapture from Hilton Pond!




I'm pleased--elated, actually!--to announce that thanks to 
color-marking, the efforts of Fred Bassett and Fred Moore, and an 
e-mail message from Bob Sargent, we have one more data point to 
support our conjecture that at least some eastern Ruby-throated 
Hummingbirds (RTHUs) may go overland in fall migration rather than to 
south Florida.

To quote Bob's e-mail, "On October 20, 2000, Master Banders Fred 
Bassett and Fred Moore made a special trip to Robertsdale, Alabama, 
In Baldwin County to check out a 'weird hummingbird with with a green 
sash.' You guessed it! It was banded with band number T86632."

T86632 is a hatch-year female banded on 3 October at 1735 hours at 
Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History near York, South 
Carolina. She was marked with green dye on her upper breast, as are 
all RTHUs banded at Hilton Pond. She only weighed 3.37 grams, so she 
apparently had not put on any migration fat at time of capture. She 
was the fifth from last bird banded this year; my latest at Hilton 
Pond for 2000 was on 6 October.

Robertsdale is just east of Mobile, so it's possible this bird could 
still head southeast toward the Florida Keys, but it seems more 
feasible it will follow the Gulf Coast, perhaps toward Texas. BTW, 
Robertsdale is 485 straight-line air miles from Hilton Pond (781 km).

This bird joins two other wandering RTHUs of note from Hilton Pond 
Center. One was a hatch-year male banded on 26 September 1991 and 
recaptured by Bob Sargent near Atlanta ten days later; this is 
believed to be the first RTHU recaptured and released more than 10 
miles from its original banding site. The other was a color-marked 
bird seen (not recaptured or specifically identified, but known to be 
a female) on 21 September 1997 by Judy Fruge' in Cameron, Louisiana, 
along the coast.

I greatly appreciate Bob's sharing this news with me, and thanks 
especially to Fred and Fred.

Details about hummingbird research at Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont 
Natural History are available on the Web sites for Operation 
RubyThroat ( http://www.rubythroat.org ) and the Center ( 
http://www.hiltonpond.org ).


Best wishes,

BILL
-- 

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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 the Center and to Operation RubyThroat: The 
Hummingbird Project are tax-deductible. Please visit our websites:

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

Operation RubyThroat: The Hummingbird Project  <http://www.rubythroat.org>


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

						BHjr.

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