October 7, 2011 -
An interesting
mix of birds continues to migrate through Big
Bald. This week's passerine species included
Orange-crowned Warbler, Blackpoll Warbler,
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Ruby-crowned
Kinglet, and Lincoln's Sparrow. Click here
to view daily totals of passerines. Highlight raptor
species banded this week include Peregrine
Falcon, Merlin, and Red-shouldered Hawk. Four Northern
Saw-whet Owls were banded during evening and
early morning trapping sessions.
We've enjoyed a variety of groups visiting
BBBS over the past few weeks, including
Montreat College and UNC-Asheville biology
students, Madison County Schools, Evergreen
Community Charter School, UNCA Wild Bunch, and
NC teachers with NCCAT. We greatly appreciate
all the help provided by our volunteers this
season! Visitors and volunteers are always
welcome at the station. Please contact
us for additional information.
September
6, 2011 - Big Bald Banding
Station opened for the 2011 fall migration
season on August 27. Over 300 birds were
banded during the first week. Highlights include
four Blackburnian Warblers, a Northern
Parula, and a Sharp-shinned Hawk. Most
numerous birds were Tennessee Warblers,
Black-throated Blue Warblers, and
Swainson's Thrushes.Click here
to view daily totals. Visitors and volunteers
are always welcome. Please contact
us for additional information.
July
28, 2011 - We had a great week of
"Vacation Bird School" at Big Bald. Young
ornithologists learned about birds and the
ecosystem through a variety of activities,
including nature journaling, data collection,
art, and literature. We ended the week with a
session of MAPS at Big Bald where students
were able to use their new skills and
knowledge as they volunteered with the bird
banding activities.Click here to view a
slideshow of VBS 2011.
July 9,
2011- Southern Appalachian Raptor
Research, in collaboration with the Little
Tennessee Land Trust and the Eastern Band of
Cherokee Indians, initiated a pilot bird
monitoring project to explore birds of the
Cowee Mound site along the banks of the Little
Tennessee River. Over 25
students and adults from the Cherokee Language
Camp, lead by Shirley Oswalt, helped with
banding, measuring, and transporting birds. Participants
had the chance to observe wild birds up-close,
then release them back to their habitat. A
total of 16 new birds were banded: four Indigo
Buntings, three American Goldfinches, two
Northern Parulas, two Carolina Chickadees, and
one Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Orchard Oriole,
Black-and-white Warbler, Yellow-breasted Chat,
and Blue Grosbeak.
June 20, 2011 - SARR is
offering a summer bird camp, "Big Bald Young
Ornithologist Expeditions," for rising 4th
and 5th graders from Madison Co., NC and the
Wolf Laurel community. Youth
participating in the camp will conduct daily
expeditions into the Big Bald habitat to
explore the science and natural history of
bird communities. Activities will include
literature readings, creative writing, applied
arts, and data collection techniques to help
understand the role of birds in Southern
Appalachian ecology. Leaders are biologist
Mark Hopey and NC Teachers, Tedi McManus and
Tina Thomas. Click here
for additional information.
June 15, 2011
- The 2011 MAPS season at Big Bald and
Tessentee is off to a great start. We're
seeing a nice variety of birds between the two
habitats. Most common species are
Slate-colored Junco, Chestnut-sided Warbler,
and Gray Catbird at Big Bald, and
Yellow-breasted Chat, Song Sparrow, and Field Sparrow at
Tessentee. We've recaptured 47 birds, several
of which are Neotropical migrants that were
banded last summer in NC, traveled to their
wintering grounds in Central or South America,
and returned to the same breeding grounds this
year. Please
visit our MAPS page for
detailed banding results for each station.
April 3, 2011 - Volunteers from
SARR, Mountain
Wild!,
and the Cherokee National Forest enjoyed a
beautiful spring afternoon while they
installed ten Northern Saw-whet Owl (NSWO)
boxes at Big Bald. The boxes were built and
donated by Mountain
WILD!, the Asheville chapter of the NC
Wildlife Federation. The boxes are part of
SARR's ongoing NSWO monitoring program. For
additional information, please visit our Owls page.
January 11, 2011 - Raptor monitoring
project at Big Bald nets possible hybrid
raptor. On November 5, 2008,
Kathy Gunther and Mark Hopey of Southern
Appalachian Raptor Research captured an
atypical Northern Goshawk at Big Bald Banding
Station in TN. Upon further investigation, the
raptor appears to be a Northern Goshawk x
Cooper's Hawk hybrid, the first to be
documented in the wild. An article
describing the apparent hybrid is published in
the 2011 winter issue of North American Birds
(NAB) http://www.aba.org/nab/.
November
17,
2010
-
Big Bald Banding Station is closed for
the season. However, SARR continues to work on
grant proposals, data entry, web page updates,
and owl monitoring. Please visit the Songbirds page to view
the final data results of the 2010 Fall
Passerine Migration season. Over 2300
songbirds were banded. We appreciate the time
and effort of BB volunteers and the enthusiasm
of all who visited the station.
October 16, 2010 - Frosty mornings
and fewer birds are a sign that fall migration
is winding down. Bird species at Big Bald are
transitioning from the Neotropical migrants we
saw in September to resident winter birds
arriving from the north to spend their winter
in the Big Bald locale. Average daily numbers
of birds are approximately twenty, and the
most common species banded are
Slate-colored Juncos and Ruby-crowned
Kinglets. The first Hermit Thrushes and
Golden-crowned Kinglets just arrived this
week.
Please note that the Big Bald
Banding Station will be closed October
17-18, 2010. We will resume operation
on Tues., October 19, 2010.
September 26, 2010 - Large numbers of
passerines continued to migrate through Big
Bald last week before the rain set in. Click here to view our
running total of passerines. Last week's
highlight species include Yellow-billed
Cuckoo, Yellow-throated Vireo, Northern
Waterthrush, and a few Blackpoll Warblers.
Forty-one raptors of four species have been
banded this season: Sharp-shinned, Cooper's,
Merlin, and Red-tailed Hawks. Click here to view our
current hawkwatch data on hmana.org. And as
always, thanks to all of our dedicated
volunteers!
September 19,
2010 - Volunteers have
been busy at Big Bald during the past week,
with several days of 100+ birds banded.
Highlight species include Wilson's Warbler,
Philadelphia Vireo, and a return Cape May
Warbler which was banded in a previous year.
To view the running total of passerines banded
at Big Bald this season, go to our Songbirds page or click
here. Our hawkwatch and raptor trapping
programs are also underway. Approximately 500
Broad-winged Hawks were observed from Big Bald
on Saturday. To view our hawkwatch data on
hmana.org, click here.
September 3, 2010 - Big Bald
Banding Station opened the fall migration
season on September 1 with a nice assortment
of passerines. A total of 24 birds of ten
species were banded. Seven warbler species
included American Redstart, Magnolia, Hooded,
Black-throated Blue, Cape May, Tennessee, and
Ovenbird. September 2 yielded similar results
with an additional warbler species,
Black-and-White. Three other passerine species
included Slate-colored Junco,
Eastern Towhee, and Blue-headed Vireo. We
invite you to join us this season! Please view
our calendar, and contact us if you plan
to visit or volunteer.
August 23, 2010 - Greetings volunteers
and visitors of Big Bald and Tessentee! Fall
migration banding at Big Bald is just around
the corner-
opening day is September 1.We
will operate from sunrise to ~1pm daily
throughout September and October, except
during inclement weather.Volunteers
of all skill levels are encouraged to
participate in a variety of activities, such
as recording data, extracting birds from nets,
and banding.Those of
you who prefer to just watch are also welcome!
Please contact us
ahead of time so we can schedule your visit
and keep you informed of any changes.
On
Saturday, October 2, 2010, we are co-hosting a
Migration Celebration at Tessentee Bottomlands
Preserve, along with Land Trust for the Little
Tennessee and the Coweeta Long Term Ecological
Research program.Participants
will have the opportunity to help gather data
about butterfly and bird migrations in the Little Tennessee River
migration corridor. We hope you’ll come out
and join us!For
additional information, click here.
August 10, 2010 – Our last MAPS
sample at Big Bald on July 31 ended with a
surprise – a male Sharp-shinned Hawk was
captured in one of our mist nests, the first
Sharpie caught during our two seasons of MAPS.
We also captured two new species for this
season at BB – Least Flycatcher and Hooded
Warbler. The foggy conditions did not hinder
bird activity, and a total of 24 new birds
were banded, with three recaptures. Numbers at
Tessentee on August 1 were quite a bit lower,
with only 12 new birds banded and three
recaptures. We greatly appreciate the work of
all volunteers who helped make the 2010 MAPS
season at Big Bald and Tessentee a great
success. Please keep an eye on our website as
we will be posting updates on fall
migration banding at Big Bald. We hope to
see you soon!
July 27, 2010 - For
the first time this season at
Tessentee
MAPS, more volunteers than birds stopped by
the banding table on July 21! An
enthusiastic group of thirty-one 4th to 6th
graders from the Summer Ed-ventures program at
Mountain View School kept busy transporting
captured birds like White-eyed Vireo and
Northern Cardinal to the banding table.
Other visitors included a nature group from
Macon County led by Debby Boots with John and
Cathy Sill. A beautiful hatch-year American
Redstart was the only new species of the 23
new banded birds and 11 recaptures. The
helpful hands of many volunteers made the day
a memorable one for all.
MAPS at Big Bald was warm and productive as
the second wave of Slate-colored Juncos topped
the 34 new birds banded. One surprise
bird for the sample was the capture of an
exotic, high-altitude Carolina Wren, the first
in two years of MAPS at Big Bald! Thanks
to an enthusiastic band of volunteers that
helped make the day safe and successful.
July 17, 2010 - We
were finally able to complete
our MAPS sample at Big Bald after postponing
it twice due to weather! Our numbers
today were quite different from 2 weeks
ago. We had a total of 14 new birds
banded, in comparison to 50 on July 3. And we
captured seven Slate-colored Juncos today,
whereas 41 were captured during the previous
sample. Four new species of birds were banded
for the season - American Redstart, Ovenbird,
Blue-headed Vireo, and Black-throated Blue
Warbler. As always, thanks to our
dedicated group of volunteers! See our MAPS page for a list of
birds banded (scroll down to the box below the
MAPS schedules).
July 12, 2010 -
SCHEDULE CHANGE at Big Bald! Due
to inclement weather, we have postponed our
next MAPS sample to Saturday, July 17, 2010.
For additional information,
please visit our MAPS page.
For directions and contact info, click here.
June 27, 2010
- The highest numbers of newly banded birds
for the 2010 MAPS season were captured at
Tessentee and Big Bald this weekend.Fledglings of a wide
variety of species were abundant at both MAPS
stations. Species
highlights include Worm-eating and
Black-throated Green Warblers at Big Bald,
Barn Swallow at Tessentee, and Black-and-white
Warbler at both stations. We greatly
appreciate the enthusiastic and hard-working
volunteers who assisted with our MAPS banding
activities! For more information and banding
results, please visit our MAPS
page.
June 2, 2010 - Our MAPS program
is off to a great start! We banded 24
birds at Big Bald and 34 birds at Tessentee
during Period 3 in May. Due to the difference in
habitats between the two stations, we're banding
quite a variety of species. Please visit our MAPS page for banding
results for each station.
May 23, 2010
- Southern
Appalachian Raptor
Research (SARR) has started the second season of
MAPS at Big Bald Banding Station on
the Cherokee National Forest.
SARR is also conducting a MAPS program at Tessentee
Bottomland Preserveon Land Trust
for the Little Tennessee (LTLT)lands in Macon County, NC.
MAPS is a
nationwide program that monitors the
productivity and survivorship of breeding
birds. See our MAPS
page for the 2010
schedules and additional information.
SARR receives
grant funding! April 2010
- We are pleased to
announce that Southern Appalachian Raptor
Research (SARR) has been awarded two grants
through the Tennessee Ornithological Society and
the North Carolina Appalachian Trail License
Plate Grant Program. Funding provided through
these two grants will allow us to monitor the
Northern Saw-whet Owl population, habitat and
breeding at Big Bald, and to implement a bird
education program.
Preliminary owl surveys conducted by SARR in March
2010 indicated the presence of Northern Saw-whet
Owls in the Big Bald habitat. As the season
progresses, we will be tracking Saw-whets with
radio telemetry to learn more about their use of
the area. Keep an eye on our website for updated
information throughout the season.
January 2010-
Students at Gardners Elementary SchoolinWilsonCountyenjoyed
a visit from Mark Hopey of Southern
Appalachian Raptor Research in December 2009.
Since Big Bald Banding Station is too far for
students to travel from Wilson,
Mark brought the banding station to them. A
mist net which Mark set up outside theMedia Centeryieldedfour
House Sparrows and a Carolina Wren. Students
were able to view the birds up-close and
learned how to record data as Mark aged,
sexed, weighed, measured and banded each bird.