The Gull

M&O
Serials
QL 671
G84

^ H E

MONTHLY

Volume 5 SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, AUGUST, 1923 Number 8

AUGUST MEETING: The next regular meeting of the Association will
be held on Thursday evening, 9th inst., at eight o’clock, in the Assembly Hall
of the Public Library, corner of McAllister and Larkin Streets. Take elevator
to third floor. Car lines No. 5 or No. 19.

Members or others who have enjoyed any experiences in hunting or
observing birds during the vacation season are urged to contribute to the
mutual pleasure by descriptions of the same, with any photographs they may
have been able to secure.

V * *

AUGUST FIELD TRIP will be taken on Sunday, August 12th, to Point
Bonita. This trip is one of the most delightful enjoyed by the Association.
At the lighthouse several species of water bird arc always to be observed and
off-shore birds are often encountered. Take Sausalito Ferry, 8:15 a. m. Pur-
chase round-trip tickets to Sausalito. Bring lunch and canteens.

Route will be over the shore road to Fort Baker and Battery Spencer and
thence by trail overlooking the ocean to Fort Barry and Rodeo Lagoon, where
lunch will be eaten. Thence to the lighthouse and returning via road and
tunnel to Sausalito, a distance of about six miles each way. Those who desire
may ride either way in motor bus.

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BIRD BANDING

The bird-banding movement noted in the Gull for March, 1922, is experi-
encing a healthy and fruitful development. The American Bird Banding
Association was formed in New York in 1909 and its work was carried on
under the auspices of the Linnean Society of that city from 1911 to 1920, when
it was formally taken over by the U. S. Biological Survey, which has been
conducting banding operations for many years. This Bureau is the natural
depository and clearing house for records for all such operations. Permits are
issued from the Bureau, bands and record forms are furnished by it, together
with detailed instructions and suggestions and notes of the experiences and
results attained by associations and individual banders.

Mr. S. Prentiss Baldwin has continued his excellent work, begun in Cleve-
land in 1914 and in Thomasville, Georgia, in 1915. Early in 1922, the New
England Bird Banding Association was organized in Boston and has since
been very active. In October, 1922, the Inland B. B. Association was formed
in Chicago, with Mr. Baldwin as its president, with the object of systematic-
ally organizing and conducting such work throughout the great Mississippi
Valley flyway and adjacent territory. The Linnean Society has renewed
operations and the Delaware Valley (Penna.) Ornithological Club is preparing
to take an active part in the work.

On the Pacific Coast, the Cooper Ornithological Club, with Mr. J. Eugene
Law in charge of organization, is enlisting competent and interested bird
students and lovers, as noted in the Gull for June, 1923.

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The benefits of this work increase in geometric ratio with the number of
active workers and are in a measure affected by the distribution of the partici-
pants with reference to lines of migration, but there are innumerable problems
which can be worked out by each individual, irrespective of others. The quali-
fications and requirements are simple; the expense, small; the work, easy,
useful and intensely interesting.

Interested bird observers who feel diffident will appreciate the following
account of ‘‘Bird Banding with Small Equipment” by a beginner, Mrs. Eliza-
beth A. Herrick, in a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the New
England B. B. Association in January last, as reported by the Biological
Survey:

“Early in 1922 I joined the New England Bird Banding Association, per-
suaded that the work would be worth while if I could report only one bird
banded at the end of the season. I felt quite sure I never should be able to
band a single bird. How was I to get the birds in the first place, and if such
an unlikely thing did happen, how was I to attach the bands? It seemed
utterly impossible, as I had no trap and knew I could not have one of the
Government traps; but, on talking with my brother-in-law about the matter,
he offered to make a trap in which he felt sure I could catch some birds.”

(Here follows a description of the construction and operation of an
automatic trap made from a brass wire bird cage only eight inches wide
and ten inches high.)

“March 14, 1922, at 10 a. m. the trap was placed on a small platform, 12
by 24 inches, on the roof of the piazza, one story from the ground, just outside
of a bedroom window, and baited with sunflower and hemp seed. I think I
should say here that I have been feeding a great many birds on that same
small platform for several years, so, of course, I felt sure that birds would
come there, but I did not feel at all sure they would go into and spring the
trap.

“At 3:30 p. m. of the same day, I had occasion to go to the room with no
thought of the trap in my mind. Imagine my surprise when upon glancing
at it 1 found a male evening grosbeak imprisoned. That 1 was excited goes
without saying, and I wondered if I could take him out of the trap and attach
the band without injuring him. It seemed a most difficult thing to do, but I
was determined to try, with the result that I found it much easier than I
expected. The bird behaved very well and made me no trouble whatever, and
he is now No. 16985.

“The next day I banded two more and the following day three more and
I kept on until I had banded 35 evening grosbeaks! One day No. 17979
repeated and I found that the bird had been able to pinch the band with its
powerful beak, so I readjusted it. This was due to the band's being made of
too thin aluminum, and I am glad to say the new ones coming to me now are
being made of the needed thickness.

“1 had large numbers of these birds come to my trap every day and hour,
and often counted 23 at the same time. On one occasion two were trapped at
once and several times I had three in the trap. Sometimes the grosbeaks
would go in and out of the trap without springing it and smaller birds used
occasionally to do the same thing, so I attached a strong thread to the perch
and brought it through the window into the room -yvhere I could spring the
trap at will.

“During the nesting season, instead of setting the trap, I attached a thread
to the small door (see cut), which has a spring strong enough to close it when
the thread is released from within the house, and I found that the birds would
go in as readily as they did the other way. I have had birds so eager to enter
that they would go around the other side if this door was closed, trying to

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hnd an entrance, and more than once I have gently pulled the door open in
front of them and they would calmly hop around and go in.

"1 banded one fox sparrow, and from April 15 to August 27 I handed 86
purple finches. 1 also banded song and chipping sparrows. Purple finch
No. 26387 was banded April 19, 1922. While 1 had my hand around him in
the trap, with lingers apart, ready to slip over his head, he deliberately picked
up a sunflower seed and cracked and devoured it with my hand still around
him.

“No. 29644, a male purple finch, went into and sprung the trap May 17,
1922. I found him perched upon the wire loop, singing his heart out, regard-
less of the fact that he was a prisoner.

“From March 14 to September 13 I banded 144 adult birds and had 118
repeats, not counting a number of grosbeaks that I took from the trap and
didn t band — not such a bad record for a beginner and one small canary-cage
trap !”

The Biological Survey also quotes a letter from Dr. R. D. Book, of Corn-
ing, Ohio, on the subject of “Baits for Bird Traps.” The author refers to the
liking of birds for crisp pie crust, and tells of his experience with a female
titmouse :

“Her mate was in the habit of alighting on my hand for pie crust. All
the time she was incubating she was crazy for it. She would leave the nest
when I approached and never cease her cries until the male would come and
get the food and carry it to her. This he would always do before he would
return and procure some for himself. But the strange part is this, that after
the birds were hatched, the mother bird would not touch the pie crust. Never
afterward, to my knowledge, could she be induced to take it. One day he
tried it time and again, but she treated his efforts with utter indifference.
Finally, she was picking under a small bush and he flew with a piece of crust
to the bush and gently dropped it through the leaves just in front of her. The
female bird paid not the least attention to this, went on picking at the ground
and presently flew off, to the apparent chagrin of her mate.”

This is paralleled, in a way, by the writer's experience with California
towhees in Berkeley. In 1922, as soon as she had brought off her young, a
mother bird apparently started them in life on suet from his feed table. Back
and forth she would go, almost voraciously filling her mouth with suet and
returning soon for another load, occasionally stopping to eat a little before
going to her offspring. Now in 1923, another brood has been raised, but the
towhees have not been seen at the suet, which has lain, practically untouched,
for nearly two months in the same place as last year.

Birds frequently exhibit something very like caprice in the matter of
food. A friend finds apples very popular with several species, but the writer
has not had this experience. The hermit thrush eats them sparingly and when
the English sparrows see him doing so, they commence to compete. But
when the thrush is not here an apple will wilt and dry up without so much as
a scratch from a bird bill. Experiments with baits form a fascinating phase
of bird banding, but explanations are often difficult to obtain, as we humans
are able to observe only one end of the story. We can know but little of what
food is obtained elsewhere than at our tables or traps. Again, it may be that
the proximity of a bird bath to the table has some modifying effect upon the
birds’ appetites.

A. S. Kibbe.

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AUDUBON WARBLERS AGAIN AT ROCK SPRING: Indications
that these warblers may be breeding hereabouts are accumulating. A male
in full plumage was again found, on July 22d, a short distance wcstwardly
from the spring, near the commencement of the trail along the Bolinas Ridge.
The female Audubon was not discovered in the time available, but persistence
may bring its reward, for April 15th is a late date for these birds, normally, in
Berkeley. The place was fairly swarming with other birds, of which many
were young. Trees, brush and grass each held their devotees.

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JULY FIELD TRIP was taken on Sunday, the 15th, starting in the
Claremont Hotel grounds, Berkeley. This attractive habitat furnished its
usual quota of species and the old road was then followed to the summit.
Lunch was eaten on the trail returning along the ridge between Claremont
and Strawberry Canyons and the party then sought the location favored by
the Bell Sparrow. After a brief waiting spell, the whole family put in its
appearance, two adults and two young displaying themselves to the full satis-
faction of everyone in the party.

The return was continued along the ridge and down to the stadium, the
party dispersing at the corner of College Avenue and Bancroft Way. Birds
encountered were: California quail, western red-tailed hawk, red-shafted
flicker, Anna and Allen hummers; olive-sided and western flycatchers, Cali-
fornia jay, purple finch, and green-backed goldfinch; Nuttall, western chip-
ping, Bell and song sparrows, San Francisco and California towhees; black-
headed grosbeak, lazuli bunting, yellow, Tolmie and pileolated warblers;
Vigors wren, bush and wren-tits, russet-backed thrush and robin. Twenty-six
species.

Members in attendance were: Miss Schroder, Mrs. Parry, Mr. and Mrs.
Kibbe, Mr. Elmore, Ananda and Henri Eric Jacobs. As guests: Dr. Goodman
and Mr. Parry. Seven members and two guests.

AUDUBON ASSOCIATION OF THE PACIFIC

FOR THE STUDY AND THE PROTECTION OF BIRDS

President. A. S. Kibbe 15S4 Grove St., Berkeley

Recording- Secretary Mrs, Carl R. Smith £63 42d Ave., San Francisco

Corresponding Secretary C. B. Lastreto 260 California St,, San Francisco

Treasurer C. R, Thomas 1605 Rose St., Berkeley

Meets second Thursday of each month, at 8:00 p.m,, in Assembly Hall of San Francisco
Public Library, Larkin and McAllister Streets.

Address Bulletin correspondence to President.

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