The Waupaca Bird Banding Jamboree has been in operation  for 5 years and the International Bird Migration Day for 2 years. The station is run by Robert Welch and Deb Martin.   The following pages are the species banded and the photos of the yearly event.  

Annual Banding Events Capture New Records

This year’s two bird banding events held on Saturday, 10 May, 2003 (the official International Migratory Bird Day), and our annual Bird Banders’ Jamboree on the weekend of May 17 – 18, were very successful in obtaining birds and educating the public about the needs of neotropical migratory birds.  Pat Fisher and Ginny Halverson were again invited to bring their "educational birds of prey",from The Feather, our local wildlife rehabilitation center, located just north of New London, Wisconsin.  Children aged 3 to 84 years were able to see permanently handicapped birds of prey including an Eastern Screech Owl, Barred Owl, Great Horned Owl, Red-tailed Hawk, and Turkey Vulture. About 125-150 people attended these events in 2003.  Those two weekends reported 127 and 156 birds netted during our annual spring migration banding events during the month of May. The constant gusty winds prevented us from doing any netting on May 31, however by the afternoon of June 1, the winds had dropped to allow us to finish off this spring’s activities and setting new capture records.

Total captures jumped from 360 in 2002, to 606 in 2003. New banded birds moved from 279 in 2002 to 467 in 2003. As with most banding activities, as your capture rate increases, so does your returns and recaptures (R/R). In 2002, we had 81 birds R/R, and in 2003 we jumped to 139. Our species list also increased from 38 to 48 within this two-year period. Most of these positive changes can be attributed to the fact that we increased our effort considerably this year, increasing our netting days from 4 to 7.5, and our total net hours from 331 to 1425.25. With the regular participation of our guest banders and their field assistants, we were able to net mostly from dawn to dusk. The average number of nets deployed each day also jumped from 12 in 2002 to 15.5 in 2003.

Only 8 species captured in 2002 were not represented in our nets in May 2003. These included three wood warblers (N. Waterthrush, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Black and White Warbler), one Sylviid (Blue-gray Gnatcatcher), one Icterid (Brown-headed Cowbird) and three flycatchers (Eastern Phoebe, Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, Willow Flycatcher) Eighteen new species captured during this season include five Fringillids (Lincoln’s Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, Grasshopper Sparrow, House Finch, Dark-eyed Junco), Tree Swallow, four wood warblers (Nashville Warbler, Canada Warbler, Palm Warbler, Golden-winged Warbler), Ruby-crowned Kinglet, four thrushes (Eastern Bluebird, Swainson’s Thrush, Wood Thrush, and American Robin), Alder Flycatcher, and two vireos (Solitary and Red-eyed). The most numerous new bird captures include American Goldfinch (166), Black-capped Chickadee (43), Northern Oriole (31), Rose-breasted Grosbeak (26), Downy Woodpecker (21), White-throated Sparrow (19), Blue Jay (17), Chipping Sparrow (16), Common Yellowthroat (14), Indigo Bunting and Gray Catbird (both 13), and Ruby-throated Hummingbird (12).

Photo credit on banding pages are Chuck Petters, Tammie Schmidt and Fisher