Dear CoBirders,
I thought that this might be of interest to some on the list-serve. This is a summary of our 2011 Black Swift banding expeditions to the St. Charles River Breeding Site, Zapata Falls in the San Luis Valley, and Fulton Resurgence Cave in the Flat Tops Wilderness. This work is a partnership between the U.S. Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory, and a group of dedicated volunteers (most notably Carolyn Gunn). This summary was initially written by Kim Potter. On 25 July, two adult Black Swifts were captured at the St. Charles River breeding site on the east side of the Wet Mountains. The male of an active nest was banded for the first time and we also recaptured the female of the pair first banded in 2010. She had been carrying a geolocator (deployed at this site on 17 August, 2010) which was successfully removed. There were two active nests but the nestlings were too small to band. On 17 August, we had few captures (only two swifts) but the data the birds provided is very exciting and useful. One female that we recaptured was first banded as an adult bird at Zapata Falls in 2004 by Rich Levad, so she is at least 8 years old. So far the oldest age documented for Black Swifts is 10 years 1 month, a California bird first banded by Charlie Collins at Lawler Falls in California. The other bird was also a female, first banded as an adult here in 2006. We collected a "swift louse fly" from one of the swifts and we sent this off to Dr. Boris Kondratieff at Fort Collins for identification. We are not sure but this could be the first time this particular parasite has been found on a Black Swift. On 23 August, we had fine weather and a high capture rate at Fulton Resurgence Cave. Five nests were active with very small nestlings suggestive that most may not fledge till very late September or October this year. We captured 8 adults but did not retrieve any of the three geolocators which were deployed in 2010 at this site. One of the adults has been recaptured every year since Kim Potter began banding at this site in 2006 (six years in a row!). Kim Potter will be returning from a second expedition to attempt to recover geolocators today. Good Birding! -- Jason Beason Special Monitoring Projects Coordinator Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory Paonia Satellite Office: 39405 Lund Road Paonia, Colorado 81428 “Conserving birds and their habitats” -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.
