BTBWs and North Carolina

     I may be a bit late with this one (roughly a year!), but its not because there was nothing good to write about!  I'll make my excuses first, and then get on with the story.  There was a lot of fly fishing and general non-birding going on, which led to me getting fewer and fewer good shots of wildlife as the season continued.  I was having a lot of fun exploring places to fish and hanging out with co-workers.  I also had a good deal of trouble getting a picture of a BTBW!  I just couldn't bring myself to write up about this project and the time spent in NC without a darn good picture of the focal species.  I'm over it now, so lets get on with filling in some of the story.

Black-throated Blue Warbler female

Black-throated Blue Warbler male

     Last summer I worked at the Coweeta Hydrolic Laboratory in south-western NC with Mason Cline and Joanna Hatt of the University of Georgia.  Their project is a long term study of Black-throated Blue Warblers (BTBW) in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina.  I got to spend a lot of time hiking around the study sites, and following BTBWs throughout the season.  Nest searching was a lot of fun, even though it can be frustrating at times.  The nice part about nest searching on these sites was that there were plenty of birds around to find nests for, much unlike working with the Golden-winged warblers in Manitoba.  Finding nests requires keying in on male and female behaviors, with the dead giveaways being females carrying nest building material, or either adult carrying food for the nestlings.  Even seeing the dead giveaways often requires sneakily following the adult in the direction they are headed, which is far from an easy task in the thick rhododendron, small streams, and steep hillsides.  Although these obstacles could be a pain, they were certainly what made the area so beautiful.

BTBW female at nest

 Besides BTBWs, there were also breeding Canada Warblers, Dark-eyed Junco, Blue Jays, Eastern Towhee, Blue-headed Vireos, Ovenbirds, and Wood Thrush in the area, so it was really fun to find other species nests accidentally throughout the season as well.  Jennifer even found a Ruffed Grouse nest that I was able to get a few pictures of as well.

Blue-headed Vireo

Wood Thrush

Scarlet Tanager

Ovenbird

Dark-eyed Junco nestlings

Dark-eyed Junco brooding

Canada Warbler

Ruffed Grouse

Ruffed Grouse nest

 This coming season, I will return to the BTBWs and the Smokies with some better equipment to hopefully get some better pictures of the BTBWs and their forest neighbors!

The crew: Ryan, Kyle, Jared, Jennifer, Joanna, and Mason