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RFI: Color-marked Hummingbirds




HI . . .

As part of "Operation RubyThroat: The Hummingbird Project," we again 
are color-marking Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) 
with temporary, non-toxic green dye on the upper breast and/or 
throat. With fall migration underway, birds from here at Hilton Pond 
Center for Piedmont Natural History near York SC are on the move, so 
we're hopeful you'll keep an eye out for color-marked birds at your 
feeder.

So far birds from Hilton Pond Center have been sighted and/or 
re-trapped in Atlanta, Mobile, and western Louisiana, presenting very 
strong evidence against the commonly held belief that all eastern 
ruby-throats fly to south Florida before crossing the Gulf of Mexico 
to the Yucatan.

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 immediately contact Operation RubyThroat via Bill Hilton Jr. 
at mailto:research@rubythroat.org or by phone at (803) 684-5852.

If you find a dead banded bird, read the band number and contact both 
Hilton 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 .

And please forward this message to anyone you know who is interested 
in hummingbirds. If you have a contact at a local newspaper or if 
your nature-related organization has a newsletter or Web site, please 
encourage the editor to publish a note about this color-marking 
protocol. We can provide photos for print publications and also would 
be happy to work with TV and radio stations. The more eyes we have 
looking, the better the chance that a color-marked bird will be seen. 
:-)

For more information about color-marked Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, 
see the Web sites for Hilton Pond Center at http://www.hiltonpond.org 
or  Operation RubyThroat at http://www.rubythroat.org . There is a 
photo of a color-marked hummer on the main page of each Web site.

Thanks in advance for your help, and Happy Hummingbird Watching!


BILL
-- 

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.