Early Spring 2025 Banding Summary

July 22, 2025

This summary was compiled by Point Blue’s Palomarin Field Station banding apprentice Paul Kessler, with help from Banding Supervisor Larissa Babicz.

Exciting Captures and Observations:

February was a relatively slow month in terms of number of birds captured per banding day, as it often is, but we still encountered some exciting birds! On February 24th, we caught a Red-shafted (Northern) Flicker at our banding site at the Muddy Hollow Trailhead in Point Reyes National Seashore – not uncommon here, but relatively uncommon in the nets. Northern Flickers are remarkable woodpeckers that exhibit three different plumage types – or feather color patterns – depending largely on where they are found in North America: red-shafted, yellow-shafted, and a combination of the two known as an intergrade! The word “shafted” refers to the color of the central feather shafts on their wings. We typically see Red-shafted Flickers in Marin County.

 

We were also surprised by the number of jays we netted in February: four Steller’s Jays and three California Scrub-Jays! Since our mist nets are intended for smaller birds, jays (like flickers) can be tricky to catch due to their larger size which can result in them “bouncing out” more easily. These conspicuous birds are year-round residents in Marin County.

 

March marked the onset of the spring season and a new crew of banders! The new apprentices arrived at the time of year when our capture rate is typically low, but they still got plenty of practice with some of our winter resident species.

A common capture in March was the Dark-eyed Junco, with 16 caught at the Palomarin Field Station in March. These can be found here year round, although our numbers in winter are augmented by migrants. Similar to Northern Flickers, Dark-eyed Juncos exhibit a variety of plumages across their range. Our particular subspecies, known as the Oregon Junco, has a grey or black head and brown back. It can be tricky to determine the age and sex of these birds, so they presented great training opportunities for the new banding crew!

 

We welcomed back Allen’s Hummingbirds, a spring migrant that breeds in Marin County. While we started to hear their buzzy, insect-like flight at Palo in late January, it wasn’t until March that we had our first captures of the species. These small, brightly-colored hummingbirds spend most of their winters in Central America, and it’s always a treat when the first ones arrive in Marin County in late winter! Visually, they appear very similar to Rufous Hummingbirds – a species of the same genus that migrates through Marin County but does not breed here. It takes a great deal of care and specific measurements of their tail feathers to correctly identify a hummingbird as either Allen’s or Rufous.

 

On March 23rd, we caught our very first “hatch year” bird of the year: a young male Anna’s Hummingbird! In the bird banding world, January 1st serves as every bird’s birthday. Any bird that hatches on or after January 1st is considered a “hatch-year” bird, or a bird that hatched during the current calendar year. Anna’s Hummingbirds tend to build nests and lay their eggs earlier than many other bird species in the area, so it makes sense that our first “hatch-year” of the year was a hummingbird!

The bird capture rate began to increase in March as more spring migrants arrived. On March 29th, we captured our first Red-breasted Nuthatch! This species is more often heard than seen, and their characteristic, nasal “yank-yank” call can be heard echoing through Marin County forests. Like other nuthatches, these birds forage by climbing up and down the trunks of trees in search of insects.

 

In addition to catching and banding birds, we try to observe all species at our banding sites and keep note of what we see. Some species we saw but that evaded our nets included Pileated Woodpeckers, Pygmy Nuthatches, and a Merlin at our site at the Muddy Hollow trailhead in Point Reyes National Seashore.

Let’s Do the Numbers:

In 23 days (2589.38 net hours) of mist-netting at Palomarin in February and March, we captured 61 new birds and recaptured 52 previously banded birds. A total of 113 birds of 27 species were caught. Approximately 4 birds were caught per banding day.

At our other West Marin banding sites, we captured 76 new birds and recaptured 66 previously banded birds. A total of 142 birds of 26 species were caught over 14 banding days in February and March (731.99 net hours), an average of approximately 10 birds per day.

The highest capture rates at Palomarin and our other West Marin banding sites were on March 19th at Palomarin with 12 birds, and February 11th at Pine Gulch (in the Bolinas Lagoon Open Space Preserve) with 20 birds.

At Palomarin, the following species were caught in the highest numbers: Ruby-crowned Kinglet (17), Dark-eyed Junco (13), Anna’s Hummingbird (12), Varied Thrush (8), and Spotted Towhee (8).

Across all off-sites, the highest numbers of captures by species were as follows: Song Sparrow (29), Yellow-rumped Warbler (23), Ruby-crowned Kinglet (13), Hermit Thrush (13), and American Robin (13).

About these Summaries:

Point Blue apprentices and staff at our Palomarin Field Station share these blog posts in an effort to further engage the public in our science. We are grateful to our partners at the Point Reyes National Seashore and to our surrounding Bolinas and West Marin County community for their support of our work.

Early-career bird banders are part of a rigorous training program at Point Blue’s Palomarin Field Station, where they learn to capture birds safely using mist nets and record data on each bird caught. The information collected allows us to better understand how populations of birds are doing and in turn gives us insight into the health of the systems we research. Learn more about our seasonal apprenticeships by visiting the careers page on our website .

All banding, marking, and sampling is being conducted under a federally authorized Bird Banding Permit issued by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Bird Banding Laboratory.

Our Palomarin Field Station is open to the public. Consider visiting us! Learn how on our contact & visit us web page.