Feature Articles

Observations From 43 Years, 1970-2012, of Banding an Adirondack Breeding/Wintering Population of Red-breasted Nuthatches

Robert P. Yunick

The banding of 1604 Red-breasted Nuthatches (Sitta canadensis) at an Adirondack Mountain, New York, location over 43 years, 1970-2012, where the species breeds and is a year-round resident, led to the recapture of 402 (20.0 percent) of them as return birds in years following banding out to a maximum age of 7 yr-2mo for a male and 5yr-6mo for a female.  The return rate of banded males was 21.3 percent, 18.5 percent for females.  Immature birds at time of banding (n=795 or 49.6 percent of those banded) were 56.3 percent male, 42.5 percent female.  In only eight of the 43 years did banded females outnumber males, vice versa in the other 35 years.  Capture data indicated that in some years of irruptive migration, nuthatches wintered at this location while in some few winters the species was conspicuously absent.  The dates of capture of each year’s first immature were grouped by five-year intervals and became progressively earlier from 20 Jul in the 1971-1975 interval to 15 Jun in the 2006-10 interval, most progressively in 2000-10.

 

An Infertile Male Blackpoll Warbler in Female-like Plumage

Spencer G. Sealy

I collected a second-year male Blackpoll Warbler (Setophaga striata) in aberrant female-like plumage at a stopover site in southern Manitoba, on 5 Jun 1976.  This male was apparently infertile with testes < 1mm in length, whereas a typically plumaged, after-second-year male taken in southern Manitoba during the 1974 spring migration had testes that measured 4.5 x 2.3 mm and 3.9 x 1.8 mm, which presumably produced sperm.  This male is compared with another male Blackpoll Warbler in female plumage that had been observed tending a nest in Vermont in Jun and early Jul 1998 (Rimmer and Tietz 2001).

 

A Female Indigo Bunting in Male-like Plumage

Glenn Gabanski, Brian Kraskiewicz

We trapped an after-second year female Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea) in aberrant plumage, resembling a second-year male, at a MAPS banding station in a forest preserve southwest of Chicago on 24 May 2016.  Sex was confirmed by the presence of a brood patch and captures in the two pervious years where plumage and brood patch indicated a female.  We know of no record of another female Indigo Bunting showing male-like plumage, but females showing male plumage have been reported in Lazuli Bunting (P. amoena), Painted Bunting (P. ciris), and other passerines.