Final Banding Days

Six weeks can go by so quickly!  It seems as though only a few days ago we were opening our first nets here on the Nicoya Peninsula.  But, whether we like it or not, our final days of banding in Costa Rica have come to an end.  Later we'll be posting highlights, photos, and banding totals from the entire six-week project, but in this post we're only covering our final banding sessions at our sites in Refugio de Vida Silvestre Curu and in Reserva Nacional Cabo Blanco.

Banding a second-year Yellow Warbler

Our last banding session at Cabo Blanco resulted in 10 new birds and 11 recaptures of previously-banded birds, representing a total of 11 species.  Among these birds was a second-year Worm-eating Warbler, only the third ever banded by our team, and the second one at Cabo Blanco.  

New
2	Ovenbird
2	Tennessee Warblers
1	Red-crowned Ant-Tanager
1	Northern Barred-Woodcreeper
1	Ruddy Woodcreeper
1	Rufous-and-white Wren
1	Plain Xenops
1	Worm-eating Warbler
Recaptures
4	Gray-headed Tanager
3	Ruddy Woodcreeper
1	Ovenbird
1	Rufous-and-white Wren
1	Bright-rumped Attila
1	Long-tailed Manakin

Nicole Guido with the last migrant captured at Cabo Blanco; a second-year Ovenbird

Totals at Curu were much higher, and our last banding session yielded some particularly cool birds.
Among the newly-banded birds were 30 each of both residents and neotropical-migrants, and 14 and 17 recaptured residents and neotropical migrants, respectively; altogether the total captures consisted of 91 individuals representing 32 species.

New
9	Tennessee Warbler
5	Long-tailed Manakin
4	Black-headed Trogon
4	Northern Waterthrush
4	Philadelphia Vireo
3	Prothonotary Warbler
2	Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
2	Rose-throated Becard
2	Clay-colored Robin
2	Rose-throated Becard
2	Streak-headed Woodcreeper
2	Slate-headed Tody-Flycatcher
2	Wood Thrush
1	Blue-black Grosbeak
1	Green Kingfisher
1	Great Kiskadee
1	American Pygmy-Kingfisher
1	Gray-headed Tanager
1	Yellow-throated Euphonia
1	Greenish Elaenia
1	Northern Scrub-Flycatcher
1	Bright-rumped Attila
1	Olivaceous Woodcreeper
1	Gray-headed Dove
1	Great-crested Flycatcher
1	Summer Tanager
1	Kentucky Warbler
1	Painted Bunting
1	American Redstart
1	Yellow Warbler
Recaptures
6	Northern Waterthrush
6	Prothonotary Warbler
5	Long-tailed Manakin
3	Tennessee Warbler
3	Rufous-and-white Wren
2	Barred Antshrike
2	Clay-colored Robin
1	Greenish Elaenia
1	American Pygmy-Kingfisher
1	Wood Thrush
1	Dusky-capped Flycatcher

The most commonly-encountered bird this session was Tennessee Warbler, which showed a big increase in the number of birds captured compared to the other two banding sessions at the site.  On more than one occasion we would find several in a single net, presumably having been foraging together, which Tennessees usually do on their wintering grounds.  Indeed, large flocks of Tennessees (up to 60 or 70 individuals) are not an uncommon sight.  For a bird that is only seldom observed in our region of North America (let alone captured and seen up-close), their abundance here in Costa Rica gives us a rare opportunity to learn to differentiate the sexes of first- and second-year birds.  There is so much overlap in the appearance of of young males and females that, even with experience, the genders of many birds remain unidentified.

Second-year female (left) and second-year male (right)
Tennessee Warblers (sexes confirmed by wing length)

Other notable captures from our final sessions included a recaptured Wood Thrush originally banded at Curu on December 19, 2012, an adult male Painted Bunting, two Yellow-bellied Flycatchers, and the season's only Yellow-throated Euphonia.

The stunning plumage of a male Painted Bunting

A male Yellow-throated Euphonia

A male Kentucky Warbler

I either forget this detail or it gets worse each year, but the last banding day of the trip was a very sad one, full of nostalgia for another productive and exciting six weeks of research in Costa Rica.  After our final net check at noon, we processed the last birds (three Tennessee Warblers and a flycatcher called a Great Kiskdadee) and removed all our equipment from the station and surrounding forest and loaded it into the car.  It's interesting to see an entire banding station (a table, two crates of bird banding equipment, six chairs, twenty-two nets, forty-four net poles, and four volunteer bird banders) get packed into a small SUV.  The contents of the car were returned to our headquarters at Finca Pura Vida, the equipment to be stored until next year, and the banders to pack for their return home.

The last bird of the season: a Great Kiskadee