Hi Tweeters,

The weather patterns the past several days have made for a shift in
wintering populations. One of the advantages of banding birds is that it
helps point these things out. My back yard is apparently the Oregon
Junco capitol of the universe. I have banded around 300 of them here in
less than two years. Ordinarily, I can look out at the juncos on the
ground and expect to see a ratio of about 1 unbanded bird to 4 that are
banded. Today, however, the ration was about 4 unbanded birds to every 1
that was banded. It seems like most of my regulars have moved on and
been replaced by a new crowd of juncos. Also, I had a flock of about 20
House Finches, none of which were banded. Usually it is about 1 to 1.
Golden Crowned Sparrows have increased as well. I counted about 12 of
them, where as this weekend I had only 4. So the evidence seems clear
that the snow has caused a locally major shift in the population (well
at least for my backyard).

Also of interest. I captured a Junco in my yard on New Years Day that
was first banded by Don Noman on 20 November 1999 in Shoreline. This is
42 days later and about 75 miles due north of my backyard.

Russell

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Russell Rogers and Mary Moore
6637 Glenwood Drive SW
Olympia WA 98512
(360) 709-9870
mailto: rrogers at halcyon.com
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