BIRDS BANDED AT HILTON POND NORTH

DURING CURRENT PERIOD

1-15 July 2025

The table below shows birds banded during the most recent period, plus each species' tally for the year and the total for each since banding commenced locally in March 2024. New species for this year are in RED.

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

Spit-rain on and off all day on 10 July 2025 gave way to a very pleasant and partly cloudy evening, so we walked onto our earth-sheltered cabin roof at Hilton Pond North for a better view to the west. There we found glowing clouds and one spindly little contrail above the tree line. Peace.

The American Redstart is a native Wood Warbler (Parulidae) with distinctive plumage. "Halloween" males are unmistakable with jet-black feathers contrasted by vivid orange patches on flanks, wings, and tail, while females (above) and young males show subdued gray and yellow. (Some first-year males have salmon flank patches instead of yellow.) Hyperactive redstarts are often seen flitting through shrubs and trees, flashing bright tail patches to startle insects they catch on the wing. The species breeds in deciduous and mixed forests throughout eastern and northern U.S. and Canada and migrate for our cold months to the Caribbean, Central America, and northern South America. Their lively behavior and cheerful, high-pitched songs make them a favorite among birders. In two years so far we've banded six American Redstarts at Hilton Pond North.

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

After June "busted out all over," little did we know July would be just as eventful at Hilton Pond North, with nature's smorgasbord keeping us hopping as we tried to document everything we encountered.

The new month started with a bang here in upper Ashe County NC as we captured our first fledgling Ruby-throated Hummingbird of the year on 1 July. It was a male (photo above) with two small red gorget feathers confirming his age and gender. Note that some young males don't get any red until they've flown south for our winter months, but many have some degree of dark green or black throat streaking. Females of any age typically have clear white throats—sometimes with pale or light streaking—but they don't have any red gorget feathers. As shown below, females and young males have white‑tipped tails, while adult males’ tails are forked with green‑black tips. Interestingly, our first free-flying youngster last year was a female that entered one of our traps on 2 July 2024, just a day later than this year's male fledgling.

Unlike many bird banding stations, here at Hilton Pond North we operate year-round; other locales often band just during spring and fall migration. We're also a bit unusual in that we deploy a full complement of mist nets AND traps almost every day we are on-site, the only exception being we don't use nets in winter when temperatures are too cold for the birds' well-being (and when a bander's fingers are likely to become icicles during net extractions). Except for hummingbird traps baited with sugar water, our capture devices are pretty much non-selective; they're liable to catch anything that flies (in the case of mist nets) or that eats millet, cracked corn, or black sunflower seeds (as with various traps including one above that had just captured a wintering American Goldfinch and five Purple Finches). Thus, we have to be ready to deal with whatever bird species happens to get snared.

We're doing pretty well with hummers in 2025 at Hilton Pond North: We've banded 35 new RTHU through 15 July but are even more amazed to have recaptured 34 returning hummers banded last year. That's 22% of the 154 from 2024—a much higher return rate than we expected—and we still have 3.5 months to go in the season! (By comparison, at York in South Carolina's Piedmont Region we typically had just 11-12% ruby-throat returns.)

Regardless of numbers, we're always astounded these tiny balls of fluff fly to the Neotropics in autumn and return to the very same spot in North America the following spring. That and their overall antics make Ruby-throated Hummingbirds so much fun to study.

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

Such was the case on 9 July when we netted a much larger bird than expected: An American Crow, just the second we've banded here at Hilton Pond North—or anywhere else! The first we caught back on 19 April was a full adult whose eye was dark brown (above), while this latest crow (below) had the muddy gray eye of a recent fledgling. (Incidentally, the bill on the second bird wasn't unusually large but looks that way because of a wide-angle lens used for the photo.)

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

A reasonable question might be whether such different eye colors have any function. The gray-to-brown iris change in American Crows is due to cells called melanocytes laying down melanin (black pigment) in the iris as the bird matures, so the color change may simply be a function of physical development. However, among crows—which have a complex cooperative breeding system in which different-year siblings stay with the family group—eye color may serve as a visual cue for age and social status, thereby reducing adult aggression or helping adults identify juveniles in need of more care. Similar eye color changes can be observed in Brown Thrashers, Eastern Towhees, and some raptors, even though those particular species don't have social systems like crows. For these, iris color may serve as an age indicator, but intensity of color may also reveal whether a prospective mate is in prime health.

We weren't kidding when we mentioned our mist nets are not selective about what they catch. In past years we have caught Red Bats, June Bugs, and even an Eastern Rat Snake trying to get a Northern Cardinal already in the net. (We interceded, saved the cardinal, and let the snake disentangle itself.) This week unintended captures included two kinds of dragonfly: A trio of Common Whitetails, Plathemis lydia, and a single specimen of Allegheny River Cruiser, Macromia alleghaniensis (male, above)—a splendidly named species new to us. As you might guess, extracting a dragonfly from a mist net is a tedious procedure. After all, they have six legs, four wings, and segmented bodies—plus pinching mouthparts!

The striking species above has a long, slender metallic body and brilliant green eyes. Other identifying features include a narrow, dark abdomen with a distinctive yellow ring on segment 7, plus clear wings with dark nodes and small dark patches near the base. Males are fast-flying and often patrol and defend long river stretches without landing. The Allegheny River Cruiser is well-suited to clean, fast-flowing rivers and large streams, making upper Ashe County and the nearby North Fork of the New River prime habitat.

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

When we do deploy mist nets all we're doing is imitating what some web-spinning arachnids have been doing for 140 million years—only we're capturing birds for banding while spiders are going after lunch. We were reminded of this "Man Imitates Nature" phenomenon a few days ago when we discovered an immature, one-inch Black-and-Yellow Argiope, Argiope aurantia (above), positioned head-down behind its signature stabilimentum in a non-native ornamental Boxwood shrub outside our cabin window. This familiar species—sometimes called "Writing Spider"—is aptly named; as she molts and grows, her abdomen will become more vividly yellow and black, and rounder, and her body will grow substantially larger than the current stage (adult female photo from our files, below).

This orb-weaving spider, so-called because of her large round web, is commonly found in gardens, fields, and forest edges across much of North America. Webs are usually suspended in open sunny areas where the spider waits for prey, quickly immobilizing insects that become entangled in sticky silk before she injects venom that digests the prey's innards. After that, the spider sucks out this nutritious porridge and stands by until the next unwary invertebrate hits her web. Males of this species are much smaller, more drab, and don’t typically build prominent orb webs with zigzag structures that serve as camouflage. Sometimes a male can be found chilling out in the female's web, where he treads lightly lest he become her next meal.

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

In our last installment we raved about the splendors of a patch of red Beebalm, Monarda didyma, growing in an open area outside our cabin at Hilton Pond North. Those plants were a gift from Ohio gardening friends who put them in the ground last fall. Unknown to us, they also sneaked in a few plantings of wild Bergamot, M. fistulosa (above), Beebalm's pale lavender cousin. We were delighted to see these two members of the Mint Family (Lamiaceae) as they appeared earlier this summer, especially since both are native to our Blue Ridge Mountains.

The name "bergamot" was applied by early European settlers who noticed leaves of M. fistulosa had a scent reminiscent of the citrusy fragrance of Bergamot Orange, Citrus bergamia, prized as an ingredient in perfumes and teas. "Bergamot" alludes to Bergamo, Italy, historically a center for citrus oil trade.

Like Beebalm, Bergamot with its multiple tubular flowers is a "pollinator powerhouse," attracting a plethora of native species: Solitary long-tongued native bees, hummingbird moths, butterflies (especially swallowtails and fritillaries), Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, and various bumblebees—including Bombus impatiens, the Common Eastern Bumblebee shown in our photo above. With Beebalm and Bergamot now established in our native garden, the only missing Ashe County Monarda is Spotted Beebalm, M. punctata. Soon we'll be looking for a dealer who raises this species from seed. (NOTE: NEVER dig a native plant in the wild unless it is in danger of being destroyed by development.)

We haven't put up an electric fence to repel Black Bears, so we continue bringing in all our sugar water and seed feeders each night. Bears are still wandering through the research area, however, likely wondering what happened to that plentiful supply of suet and black sunflower they'd been stealing. Click on the video above for a snippet of a young and relatively small individual that meandered through on 8 July. (As a little bonus with the sound up you can hear a Hooded Warbler singing quite loudly in the background.) In the absence of its normal fare, this bear went straight for our prized Highbush Blueberry patch and took all the ripe ones!

Looking at another video (just above, at half speed) taken along the driveway to our cabin you can understand why we called the first bear "relatively small." The second bear is considerably larger and more mature—possibly an adult boar.

A few days later the same big bear got a little too curious and charged the trail cam along the driveway (just above), who knows why. We're just glad the camera didn’t get eaten or damaged.

We respect our bears but aren't particularly afraid of them and don't hesitate to walk our trails dawn to dusk—even after dark armed with a headlamp. Unlike Grizzly Bears out west, Black Bears are generally shy and tend to avoid people, retreating if they hear or smell you. (If we ever chance upon cubs we'll be careful not to alarm Mama Bear.) Some experienced backcountry hikers suggest carrying "jingle bells" and a can of bear spray for hikes in the Appalachians, and maybe throwing a hat on the ground to distract any bear you encounter—all of which reminds us of an old joke:

Q. How do you recognize fresh bear droppings in the woods?

A. It's easy. Fresh bear scat is big, fragrant, steamy, and frequently contains berries, seeds, and maybe some fur. And sometimes there are jingle bells, cans of bear spray with tooth marks, and chewed-up hats.

Groan . . . .