story of a small ambassador

On 22 April, I captured a banded Ruby-crowned Kinglet (Regulus calendula).  I was amazed to see that it was not a bird that I had previously banded.  The rule of thumb is that fewer than 1% of small songbirds are ever encountered away from the place they are banded.  And kinglets are one of the smallest songbirds, weighing in at around 6 or 7 grams, or the same weight as an American nickel and a dime. 

In The Canadian Atlas of Bird Banding (there is no U.S. equivalent), I looked up the number of encounters of Ruby-crowned Kinglets -- an encounter being a subsequent observation of a banded bird, dead or alive.  Between 1921 and 1995, with over 48,000 banded in Canada between 1955-1995 alone, the number of Ruby-crowned Kinglets encountered was only ten.  The Atlas noted this is one of the lowest encounter rates of any species.  What a special event this was! Coincidentally, this is the second significant Ruby-crowned Kinglet I have come across in my career, the first being the second wintering record for Cuba, which I documented in 2003.

The only other “foreign encounters” I’ve had were an American Goldfinch (Carduelis tristis) and a Sharp-shinned Hawk (Accipiter striatus), Both were originally banded within 25 miles (40 km) of here, and were caught by me within four months of the banding date.  Figuring this kinglet, too, was from nearby, I contacted the other regional banders, but nobody could claim this diminutive traveler.

On 2 May, I received acknowledgment from the U.S. Bird Banding Lab that this kinglet was originally banded as a hatching-year bird (born the same year it was banded) on 10 Oct 2003 outside of Toronto, about 216 miles (348 km) ENE of here (southeast Michigan).

Specifically, the location was Tommy Thompson Park (a.k.a. Leslie Street Spit),  man-made peninsula constructed from dredge and fill which juts out 3 miles (5 km) into Lake Ontario from the Toronto shoreline. The kinglet was banded by the Tommy Thompson Park Bird Research Station (TTPBRS), a partnership between Toronto and Region Conservation and the Toronto Bird Observatory.

Kinglets, especially Ruby-crowned, are a bread-and-butter bird for TTPBRS, making up 30% of all birds banded over fall 2003-2004.  This is not surprising: other lower Great Lakes banding sites located along the shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario also band hundreds or thousands of kinglets: Long Point Bird Observatory, Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory, Braddock Bay Bird Observatory, and Haldimand Bird Observatory, for example.  At our inland site, we don’t even SEE as many kinglets as these stations band in a typical fall season! This seems to provide evidence that these little mites prefer to travel along shorelines rather than over water during their journeys between their nesting areas in northern spruce-fir forests and their wintering areas in the southern U.S., Mexico, and Central America.

The capture of this one bird provides only a single data point, and while it is a notably rare event, in itself it doesn’t deliver a big scientific wallop. But this encounter is valuable in other ways. Ruby-crowned Kinglet number 2310-75634 has provided a special connection between two bird research stations studying urban bird ecology – an underappreciated focus that often struggles for acknowledgment and recognition. And it provides an opportunity for us all to marvel at the resilience of such a small creature, and how much we still don’t know about this common bird that flits among us, just passing by.

Comments

[GrrlScientist]

What a wonderful story! I have never captured a banded bird, although I have spotted a few while birding and managed to collect their band numbers and report them to the US bird banding lab (hey, these were Canada geese!). Your story just goes to show that worlds of mystery live right in front of our noses.

GrrlScientist

[bob]

I once found a banded Yorkshire Terrier - he had come all the way from Abilene Texas... Go figure...

Hey -- my meeting was pushed out another 3 weeks -- see you then...