RFI: Color-marked Hummingbirds

birder6@juno.com
Wed, 7 Apr 1999 08:40:27 -0400 

To:   bird networks...    I have received the attached request for
information
on color-marked, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds.

                             Larry

Larry Lynch
Chesterfield Co., VA
(804) 272-8582

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

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

Spring 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 1998 I have
still
managed to capture and band 1,929 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
harmless, 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.) This year I am also banding RTHU at Daniel
Stowe
Botanical Garden in Belmont, North Carolina; these birds are marked with
BLUE dye. Lastly, in early August I band RTHU at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary
in
Kempton, Pennsylvania, using BROWN 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 the fall of 1997, a woman in Louisiana, sighted another
"green-throated"
hummingbird that was likely a female 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 spring of 1999 and again this fall.


BILL HILTON JR.
(Master Banding Permit #21558)

***********

***********

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

OR . . .

BILL HILTON JR.
Director of Education & Research
Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden
6500 South New Hope Road
Belmont, North Carolina 28012

home phone:  (803)684-0255
home e-mail:  bhilton@InfoAve.net

work phone: (704)825-4490
work e-mail: hilton@stowegarden.org
work website: http://www.stowegarden.org

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