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RFI: Color-marked Hummingbirds



>Quick question. Is anyone aware of any hummingbird banders who were 'color
>marking' hummers this summer?
>
>
>Judy Walker
>CIMC/Atkins Library
>UNC Charlotte
>jwalker@newmail.uncc.edu
>Voice: 704-547-2559  Fax: 704-547-3975


**********

JUDY . . .

As always, I'm color-marking hummingbirds in 1999 in York and at Hawk Mountain.

BILL

******

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION ON SIGHTINGS OF COLOR-MARKED RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRDS

      (Please forward this posting to other appropriate lists to which 
you may subscribe.)

Fall migration of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) 
is under way in the northcentral Piedmont of South Carolina. I have 
been banding hummingbirds here at Hilton Pond near York SC (just 
south and west
of Charlotte NC) since 1984. Although the Piedmont seems NOT to be a 
hummingbird migrational pathway or staging area, through 20 September 
1999, I have still managed to capture and band 2,004 RTHU, and have 
retrapped many RTHU in subsequent years after banding.

To minimize recapture of banded hummingbirds in my pull-string traps, 
I am 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, I
use a so-called "permanent" felt-tip marker, but the dye wears or 
washes off within a month or so.) In early August I also banded RTHU 
at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Kempton, Pennsylvania, using BLUE dye.

Because we know little about actual overland migrational pathways for 
hummingbirds, I would appreciate hearing about any sightings you may 
have of color-marked hummingbirds during migration this spring and 
fall.

Color-marking of hummingbirds here 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 drove to Atlanta, trapped the bird, and after reading 
the band number learned I had banded it in South Carolina. This, to 
the best of our knowledge, was the first report of a banded 
Ruby-throated Hummingbird to be recaptured and released away from its 
original banding site.

In FAll 1997, a woman in Louisiana, sighted another "green-throated" 
hummingbird that was likely a RTHU banded here in York; 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 also have been the first 
"long-distance" sighting of a marked RTHU.

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 me at my personal e-mail address below (I'm not 
currently subscribed to
BIRDCHAT or HUMNET) or at my home phone. If you find a dead banded 
bird, read the band number and also contact the Bird Banding Lab at 
1-800-327-BAND or via their reporting website page at 
http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bbl/homepage/recwbnd.htm.

Thanks for any help you can provide in taking close looks at 
hummingbirds at your feeders during the fall of 1999 and again next 
spring.


Bill Hilton Jr.
(Master Banding Permit #21558)

***********

*******

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

Consultant and speaker on science education, teacher training, and 
natural history

voice: (803) 684-5852
fax: (803) 684-5852 (call first)
e-mail: bhilton@infoave.net

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