Last Day of the Field Season

Yesterday marked the last day of the 2015 field season. We ended at the Common Room nest site at Hawk Mountain with an afternoon downpour while on the slope of the ridge.
Soaking wet and tired we finished up our last veg plot.

Within the last two weeks we have done vegetation sampling at 12 nest sites.
Each nest site has 6 plots (nest site circle and 5 randoms), so all in all we did a total of 72 plots. At each plot we are measuring the nest tree characteristics, canopy and ground cover, shrub density, the diameter breast height (DBH) and species of each tree. A few of the abundant tree species we have seen at many of the sites include, Black Birch (Betula lenta), Red Maple (Acer rubrum), Chestnut Oak (Quercus prinus), Red Oak (Quercus rubra), and Blackgum (Nyssa sylvatica). 

We are so thankful for the amazing group of people who helped us complete this task. A big thank you to our field assistants, Zach, Corinne, Randy and Cassie and of course our fabulous volunteers Laura, Heather, Holly, Rob, Kara, Marc and Terry. It was hot, humid, there were ticks and mosquitoes  and thick patches of briers, mountain laurel and rhododendron, but we did it!
Thank you all again!

Laurie, Zach and Corinne working on a plot at Stoney Acres

Veg surveys at Mud Pond in the Delaware State Forest 

Dr. Terry Master and Dr. Laurie Goodrich identifying trees

Last plot at Mud Pond before moving down the road to the Silver Lake nest

Corinne recording data for Laurie (who is somewhere in all that Mountain Laurel)

We found her!

Corinne and Laurie at the Game Lands 106 site

Zach using his ocular tube to determine ground cover while Marc records

Everyone hard at work at the Coal Mountain site

Zach walking the transect while measuring canopy cover

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
We are also happy to inform you that the movement map with the tagged birds is up on the Hawk Mountain webpage for your viewing pleasure.  Check out
 http://www.hawkmountain.org/birdtracker/ 
to follow the birds in 2015 as they leave their breeding grounds and head south in the fall.
You can zoom in to see where the birds are at currently, and compare movements between those from the same area (Delaware State Forest), those from different forest types (Hawk Mountain and Delaware State Forest) and compare this years movements with the migration pathway from last years tagged bird, Abbo.

Abbo's nest, Observations and Trapping

   Our last blog post delivered some unfortunate news about our tagged bird, Abbo. Since then we have not received any new locations leading us to conclude that the bird attacked at the nest site was Abbo. With the hope of finding more clues or the satellite telemetry unit that belonged to Abbo, a team of staff and volunteers went out to the New Ringgold nest site on June 17th to search around the nest tree and surrounding area for any sign of her or her transmitter. We did not find much other than a few more feathers from an adult broadwing. One week later, Rebecca, Laurie and Todd (HMS facilities) traveled back to Abbo's nest to climb the nest tree to see whether or not the satellite transmitter was sitting in the nest or perhaps find evidence of what happened.  Abbo and her mate were incubating eggs at the time of the event, so we might even find their remains.

Rebecca prepping as Todd checks out the nest tree

Rebecca heading up the tree

Halfway there; note how much defoliation had occurred leaving the nest exposed.

A few branches to get around before reaching the nest

Descending after looking in the nest and snapping a few pictures

mission complete

Center of the nest. Apologies for the blurry pictures, you are just a little shaky when you reach the top

Nest from above

After climbing to the nest, some 70+ feet off the ground, and no transmitter in sight, we are saddened to say that Abbo and the transmitter have not been seen since. No eggs were found in the nest or any evidence of what might have happened except a few feathers. Eggs could have been taken that day or another day by a passing crow, so their disappearance was expected.




   Field observations on the other 11 nests will be coming to an end in the next two weeks. Many of the nests in the Delaware State Forest have young that will be fledging soon. Each of the nests have at least a morning and afternoon observation conducted every week. Our field assistants and dedicated volunteers have been collecting great data and having fun seeing the chicks grow! 

Corinne observing at the Saw Creek nest in the Delaware State Forest

   The nestcam in Shartlesville has been recording since the installation from 6 am to 7 pm everyday. We are getting a lot of great footage, all of which are up on 
The Broad-winged Hawk Project Facebook Page and Hawk Mountain Sanctuary's YouTube Page.

   In other project news, we began trapping Broadwings on June 22nd, starting in the Delaware State Forest. We had a successful first day, with our first bird trapped being a female, and large enough to have a transmitter attached!

Rebecca and Laurie banding the female

Meet Pocono Penny!

Fitting the backpack

Randy and Pocono Penny

Rebecca and David putting on the transmitter

Once the bird is banded and the unit is attached we always take a few pictures of the wing, tail feathers, head, etc.

Ready for release

 As of July 1st, we have a total of three transmitters on female Broadwings. Two of which are in the Delaware State Forest and the third at Hawk Mountain. We have also trapped three males, who each received color bands and a USGS aluminum band.

Color code: Black-Black. Male from Saw Creek in the Delaware State Forest

We will continue trapping the next two weeks, with the hopes of putting on five more units. Once observations and trapping are finished we will move on to vegetation sampling at all of the nest sites. It has been a hectic couple of months but we are happy to share all of our success with all of you!