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Green Swamp/Waccamaw; banding value



Hi Carolinabirders,

Returned to the Green Swamp yesterday, with students in tow this time.
Didn't match Gary's 9 warblers, but did manage 5! Started before I even
got dressed in the morning, as I heard an Ovenbird through the bathroom
window! Yard bird #57... At the Green Swamp, a Prairie Warbler sang near
the borrow pit while I was searching out a rare little saprophytic
wildflower (Bartonia verna, aka White Screwstem). Pine Warblers, and also
multiple Bachman's Sparrows, sang in the Shoestring Savannah while we were
enjoying the flowers of the insect-eating Yellow Butterwort (Pinguicula
lutea). Still no sign of the Red-cockadeds, other than their holes. Then
we briefly visited Lake Waccamaw State Park, which had several Northern
Parulas and a White-eyed Vireo singing, and a Forster's Tern fishing off
the dock. Saw my first Barn Swallows of the year en route, and my first
Loggerhead Shrike in quite some time too. Okay, so the fifth warbler
wasn't until this morning, when a Yellow-rumped arrived at the suet
feeder.

Speaking of which, it might be a good day to fill all the feeders! Sounds
like we have a *serious* cold snap arriving, possibly with SNOW this
afternoon, and with many birds already having started nesting, food could
be a critical issue until it warms up again tomorrow... I'm just hoping
all of our budding leaves and sprouting perennial wildflowers survive the
chill, they're a bit too widely dispersed to effectively mulch or tarp.

On Thu, 27 Mar 2003, Gibeau,  Stu wrote:
>
> I don't think mist netting and trapping really lends all that much to
> research.  I've met some people that do it and it seems to be mostly self
> indulgence. Yes, I'm sure there are good uses for it especially in cases
> where it's impossible to tell species apart and ranges/habitats are
> dramatically changing.  Still I think most birds could probably be observed
> unmolested.  I don't think there are any North American species that we
> don't already have weight and size ranges for.

I'm surprised there hasn't been any response to this! A few issues:

1. Size and weight ranges change over time, and especially in response to
environmental variables. If we just assume that these things are static,
and don't keep banding, we may miss important trends. This is especially
important in these days when animal-rights concerns limit museum specimen
collections to accident victims, a much less random sample.

2. We are still answering important questions. For instance, it is
traditionally assumed that out-of-range vagrants are doomed malfunctioning
migrants who will never survive their vagrancy or have a chance to mate,
and so can be collected as specimens or eaten by Merlins without any
significance to their species' populations. Our local hummingbird banders
have since confirmed that some Rufous Hummingbirds are returning here to
winter year after year, and at least one (Gary's?) was recaptured much
further north and west (Michigan?), presumably en route back to its normal
breeding range. At some point, if we band enough of these critters, we may
even find one feeding nestlings someday...

I could head to the Duke library, skim the journals, and come up with many
more examples given the time. And this is just for research; banding is
also a great tool for education and outreach, too.

As for indulgence, there are policemen and soldiers who enjoy firearms
practice, computer programmers who enjoy writing software, teachers who
enjoy spending time with students. Enjoying what you do, even to the point
that you'll do it for little or no money, does not make it indulgent, or
unnecessary.

Good birding,

Josh


Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Biology (Zoology, R.I.P.)

jsr6@duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/