Ohio Bird Banding - Fall Migration 2009

__________________________________

After hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, I returned to the grand state of Ohio to band birds and work for the School of Environment and Natural Resources at the Ohio State University.
From early September to the end of October, I was employed as an Avian Technician again, only this time I worked on Erin Cashion's masters thesis research.

The focus of Erin's project was to determine if Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), and Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) habitats are utilized and valuable to landbird migrants during fall stopover/migration. This is an important question, because up until this point, no one had investigated whether or not fall migrating birds used these types of habitats.

CRP and CREP are financial incentive programs as a part of the 1985 Food Security Act (also known as the farm bill) that provide financial incentives to land owners who convert crop land into non-crop vegetative cover. CREP is more specific than CRP in the sense that it pertains more so to riparian habitats. The primary purpose of CRP and CREP habitats are to mitigate soil erosion and agricultural runoff. You don't necessarily have to be a farmer either, any landowner with a ditch or any other type of riparian habitat can receive payments as a part of CRP and/or CREP.

To determine if these types of habitats were valuable and being utilized by migrating landbirds, Erin compared abundance and species richness (by banding birds and walking transects) in three types of riparian habitats (in an agriculturally dominated landscape), mature forests, naturally succeeded early successional habitats, and CRP and CREP riparian restoration habitats.

Erin's field sites were in northwestern Ohio near the town of Findlay. My job was to simply band birds, age and sex them, and take standard banding data on them (i.e. wing chord, tail length, fat score, keel score, tarsus length, skull ossification, etc.). Erin also collected insect samples from her field sites, which we sorted and identified. In these two months of banding, I processed roughly 283 birds.

__________________________________________________

HY Male NOCA HY Male NOCA	Molting HY Male NOCA Molting HY Male NOCA	Northern Cardinal Molting Northern Cardinal Molting	HY CSWA - Fall Plumage HY CSWA - Fall Plumage	Fall Plumage Chestnut-sided Warbler Fall Plumage Chestnut-sided Warbler
HY - CSWA HY - CSWA	HY - Chestnut-Sided Warbler HY - Chestnut-Sided Warbler	HY Male - BTBW HY Male - BTBW	Sun Shinning Near The Net-lanes Sun Shinning Near The Net-lanes	Morning Sunshine At Site 36 Morning Sunshine At Site 36
HY - Male COYE HY - Male COYE	HY Male Common Yellow-throat HY Male Common Yellow-throat	HY Male COYE In The Banders Grip HY Male COYE In The Banders Grip	HY BLPW HY BLPW	HY Black-poll Warbler - Sex Unkown HY Black-poll Warbler - Sex Unkown
BLPW Fight Feathers BLPW Fight Feathers	BLPW - HY BLPW - HY	CACH Flight Feathers CACH Flight Feathers	Carolina Chickadee - CACH Carolina Chickadee - CACH	GRCA Molt-limit - HY GRCA Molt-limit - HY
HY GRCA HY GRCA	HY Gray Catbird HY Gray Catbird	HY Yellow-bellied Flycatcher HY Yellow-bellied Flycatcher	YBFL - HY YBFL - HY	HY - YBFL Flight Feathers HY - YBFL Flight Feathers
Female AMRE Fight Feathers Female AMRE Fight Feathers	AMRE In Banders Grip AMRE In Banders Grip	Female AMRE - HY Female AMRE - HY	HY Female AMRE HY Female AMRE	Gray-cheeked Thrush Gray-cheeked Thrush
HY MAWA HY MAWA	HY MAWA Rects HY MAWA Rects	AHY Male AMRE AHY Male AMRE	AHY Male AMRE Flight Feathers AHY Male AMRE Flight Feathers	HY TEWA HY TEWA
HY TEWA Flight Feathers HY TEWA Flight Feathers	AHY Male MAWA Flight Feathers AHY Male MAWA Flight Feathers	YBCU Flight Feathers YBCU Flight Feathers	HY YBCU HY YBCU	Yellow-billed Cuckoo Yellow-billed Cuckoo
HY YBCU In Banders Grip HY YBCU In Banders Grip	YBCU Rectrices YBCU Rectrices	Hatch Year BAWW Hatch Year BAWW	HY Black and White Warbler HY Black and White Warbler	HY BAWW HY BAWW
Crazy Looking - Tussock Moth Catepillar Crazy Looking - Tussock Moth Catepillar	Tussock Moth Catepillar Tussock Moth Catepillar	AHY Male COYE AHY Male COYE	Recapatured AHY FISP Recapatured AHY FISP	FISP Flight Feathers FISP Flight Feathers