As I sit at my computer clicking through hundreds of images from last weeks events, I feel happy and relieved that everything went so smoothly and was a great success. Our week began on Sunday, July 6th when Laurie and I met at the Acopian Center to gather our materials for our first attempt at trapping Broadwings. With the car packed up and ready to go, we made our way to the River of Rocks nest site. After four hours of waiting for an adult to swoop into the mist net we made the decision to call it a day. With no Broadwing trapping on Monday, we had time to discuss the pros and cons to our set up on Sunday. It was nice to have a 'trial day' where we actually got to test everything out in the field and see what worked and what did not.
Tuesday was a new day and this time we had some friends to help us out at a new location. Dave Hughes, HMS volunteer, experienced raptor trapper and wildlife artist, as well as Adam Carter, HMS Educator and Broadwing project videographer spent their morning at the New Ringgold nest site with us. Unfortunately we were unable to trap any Broadwings during our time there.
As Wednesday morning approached, I started to feel a little stressed that our methods for trapping were not going to work on this secretive, forest raptor. I stayed positive knowing that this is a learning experience and we are only going to get better from here. With a new location, Shartlesville, and another friend to help us on our mission, Bracken Brown, former HMS trainee and experienced raptor trapper, we set up all of the equipment and waited patiently for the call of the nearby Broadwing. As the fake Great Horned Owl sat behind the mist nets and its call played on a tape player, it took all but 10 minutes for the call of what we believe to have been the female Broadwing. She called and called, bouncing from tree to tree, never taking a dive at the net. 20 minutes later, a second Broadwing calls, louder and closer than the first. Could it be that the female kept an eye on the owl and called until the male came to defend and protect the nest? We think that might have been the case since the male was the one to sweep in, taking a dive at the owl, and getting trapped in the net.
We all rush over and carefully take the Broadwing out of the net and bring it over to our processing area. [[ The rush that you feel in this moment is crazy... you are a mixture of emotions.... excited, nervous, anxious, relieved, happy, etc. ]] With the Broadwing in Bracken's hand, Laurie begins taking measurements of the bird as I document them on our data sheet. Weight, wing chord, wing flattened, tarsus, culmen, eye color, crop are all documented as well as the number of the USFWS band and the color code for this individual. After it's banded, we snap a few pictures of our first trapped Broadwing and then release it back into the wild. Because it was a smaller male we could not put a transmitter on it nevertheless we are happy to have it color-marked so we can identify it in the future. A great day for the Broadwing Project crew!
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| Laurie setting up the tape player next to the Great Horned Owl decoy |
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| A great look at the Broadwing from the back |
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| Weighing the bird |
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| Measuring tail band |
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| Color code for this individual is Blue Blue |
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| a very happy grad student! |
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| Laurie giving it a pep talk about heading South and returning next year :) |
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