How I Met Your Mother (Presque Isle Style)

As many of you know we don't just catch the migratory birds here at Presque Isle, we also catch a lot of the local breeding population. Some of our recapture data shows the same birds returning to the same banding site around the same time each year. It's pretty amazing that they are that site faithful but it's true, we almost never recapture a bird that was banded at one site at the other site and vice versa. And considering these birds flew all the way from the tropics to nest here, what's a few extra miles, right? Well, apparently it's a lot to them. So, as they are reestablishing territories we often catch two of the same species in the net together. Sometimes it's two males that are still squawking at each other and sometimes it's a male and a female. So I like to think that the latter pair will look back some day and tell their children about that one fateful day that they met in a mist net at Fry's Landing. I'm joking, of course, but it is a lot of fun and very interesting data that we recover from monitoring these local breeders.

A Blue-gray Gnatcatcher pair that was caught together in the net. Because this was a known mated pair that I had been watching build a nest for over a week, when we gave them sequential bands, we also pronounced them husband and wife. Clearly, one of them looks more thrilled than the other.
Photo by Gigi Gerben

  

Male and Female Baltimore Oriole caught together in the same net. This was taken at Niagara Boat Launch but we have a wonderful view of a nesting pair of orioles at Fry's Landing. Orioles build some of the coolest nests and we'd be happy to point it out to you if you stop by and see us this week!
Photo by Gigi Gerben

Male and female Yellow Warblers. The most common pairs found in the nets.

A typical Yellow Warbler nest

A female Yellow Warbler with a brood patch- with that extensive of a brood patch she is almost surely sitting on eggs. The females use their bare skin to help regulate the temperature of the eggs on which they sit. 

Not the best photo but that is actually a photo of a gravid Gray Catbird, ie she is with egg. On average, a catbird will lay four eggs, one on each consecutive day, after which she will sit and incubate them while being fed by the male until the eggs hatch about 12-13 days later.