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

The table below shows birds banded during the Current Period (Columns 1 & 2), each species' Yearly Tally (Column 3), and a Grand Total for each species (Column 4) since banding began at Hilton Pond North on 10 March 2024. Any new species for the current year are in RED.

NOTE: Heavy snow and bitterly cold temperatures suppressed banding activity for part of the period.

BANDED BIRD RECAPTURES/RETURNS

AT HILTON POND NORTH

02-14 February 2026

Birds in RED are in at least their fourth year.

American Goldfinch banded here 03/22/24; now after-4th-year female

American Goldfinch banded here 03/23/24; now after-4th-year male

American Goldfinch banded here 11/19/24; now 3rd-year female

American Goldfinch banded here 03/18/25; now 3rd-year male

American Goldfinch banded here 04/22/25; now 3rd-year female

American Goldfinch banded here 11/19/25; now after 3rd-year female

NOTE: It is likely all or most of these AMGO migrated away from Hilton Pond North the spring after banding and then returned in a later winter.

If you missed our 2025 Ruby-throated Hummingbird Banding Summary, it's still posted HERE.

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

BIRD BANDING RESULTS FOR

HILTON POND NORTH DURING CURRENT PERIOD

02-14 February 2026

NEWLY BANDED BIRDS

AT HILTON POND NORTH

02-14 February 2026

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

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

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

Hilton Pond North's Bird & Nature Cam is up and running; turn on "Sound" to hear bird calls. Click on the name YouTube in the image above to access our 24/7 channel; there you can subscribe to the livestream and stay abreast of exciting year-round Nature Cam happenings in upper Ashe County NC, the heart of the Blue Ridge Province. (Sometimes you'll see snow, rain or fog, so the livestream also serves as a weather cam!)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We—and the birds—were glad we also didn't run out of sunflower seeds, which happened only because intrepid realtor friend and fellow birder Scott Cronk delivered a 40-pound sack in his 4WD truck. During the peak of the storm period our avian visitors were eating up to ten pounds of seed per day, so even our previous 40-pound bags didn't last long. This winter we've already used about 20 bags (800 pounds) at $25 each, making black sunflower a significant portion of Hilton Pond Center's annual operating budget. And that's not even counting all those suet cakes, mealworms, bark butter, and mixed seed we also offer on a regular basis. Among the takers of our bountiful bird food was our biggest flock ever of 31 Mourning Doves (in part, above) poking around in the snow on 9 February. Also making cameo appearances in the photo are several much smaller American Goldfinches, a male Eastern Towhee, and White-throated Sparrow—plus a male Purple Finch perched precariously on the feeder baffle at top center.

Adding to the problem, on 31 January we got six MORE inches of new snow, meaning we were truly snowbound. We got LOTS of practice walking on ice with YakTrax crampons attached to our boots, but mostly it was too cold and gusty (wind chills below zero on a few days) to band birds or do any trail work at Hilton Pond North. (The Yaktrax were a gift from Ohio friends Amy Girten and Kim Pierce Lascola who correctly predicted we would eventually need them. On our first snow/ice excursion we hadn't donned the crampons and slipped, causing our iPhone to fall from our parka pocket. It hit the ground and zipped down the iced-over driveway for at least 50 yards, apparently setting a new unassisted land speed record for a cellular device. It was no fun going back down the hill to get it, but at least it was undamaged. Cell phone sliding could become a new Winter Olympics event, right up there with curling!)

We finally had some respite the first week in February when the thermometer unfroze and afternoon highs reached the 50s and low 60s. This initially gave us a top layer of slush, but hardened ice underneath still made driving treacherous; it wasn't until February's second week we could safely make it down—and up—our 3/8th-mile snow-covered driveway that in the photo above curves sharply to the right before turning sharply again to the left. We're grateful for our well-stocked pantry and that we never lost electrical power in our comfy Blue Ridge Mountain cabin, snug as bugs in a rug.

Sunset from Hilton Pond North, 12 February 2026.

This special evening sunset is in memory of brother-in-law Ron Farver, who passed away on the 11th at age 78. Ron was a Vietnam veteran and a respected businessman in northeast Ohio. Our sincerest sympathies go out especially to our first baby sister Cindy Hilton Farver and our beloved niece Katie Farver Theado, her husband Wally, and their children (grandchildren of Ron and Cindy). In recognition of Ron's interest in aviation, note the contrail saluting him at upper right.

Our most unexpected catch during the snowy period was a female Eastern Towhee (EATO), just the second of her gender in three years at Hilton Pond North and the 15th of her species. (Females, as above, are rich brown on back and head where males are black. A red iris indicates adult.) They occur in the Blue Ridge up to highest elevations, favoring warm, dry south-facing slopes over cool, moist north-facing ones. They prefer dense shrub cover and deep leaf litter in which to scratch for invertebrates. In Ashe County this means forest edges, old fields and pasture margins, brushy clear-cuts and logging roads, overgrown fence lines, and Rosebay Rhododendron and Mountain Laurel hells.

Towhees are year-round residents at lower elevations in Ashe but are more obvious in summer, when nesting birds forage for families and males sing from high perches. After breeding, higher-elevation individuals descend to lower elevations for winter and birds from the northern U.S. also move in; thus, a winter population in valleys and lower slopes here includes a mix of local birds and short-distance migrants. Site fidelity is generally strong for this species; resident birds that survive winter typically return to the same territories, and migrant individuals often occupy the same lower-elevation patches in successive years.

Diet shifts markedly with the seasons: In summer towhees rely heavily on insects (beetles, caterpillars, moths, ants, and true bugs), along with spiders, snails, and millipedes. Seeds, acorns, and other available fruits are dietary staples through fall and winter. At feeding stations they eat a variety of seeds and sometimes dine on suet.

Overall, Eastern Towhees have lost more than 50% of their population in the past 50 years and are listed as an "Orange Alert Tipping Point" species in the "2025 State of the Birds" report. This decline is driven primarily by maturation of second-growth forests and reduction of brushy early successional habitat—a dynamic playing out in Ashe County as former farmland and old timber cuts advance into closed-canopy forest, diminishing opportunities for many bird species with similar needs. This calls for serious re-thinking of management practices by wildlife, forestry, and agricultural agencies. We are seriously considering appropriate manipulation of habitat on our 35+ acres at Hilton Pond North.

We never tire of the view of Phoenix Mountain from the windows of our cozy little earth-sheltered cabin at Hilton Pond North. It's splendid in all seasons, but winter snows highlight the interior ridge lines and make the panorama even more delightful. (Do you see a turtle face in the photo?)

Hard to believe as it might seem, White-tailed Deer, Odocoileus virginiana, were indeed disappearing from North Carolina's landscape, not merely because of habitat loss but from severe and constant overhunting. From the time first Europeans arrived in North America, deer were a prime source of protein—abundant, easy to shoot, and less demanding than raising livestock. By 1900, deer had been hunted relentlessly for 200+ years without regulation.

Even though deer habitat actually improved during this period, hunting pressure was simply unsustainable: Deerskins were traded, venison sold in markets, there were no bag limits or closed seasons, and professional hunters could harvest deer in vast numbers year-round.  Fortunately, by the 1930s restocking of herds from other states and enforced hunting regulations—plus continued good habitat—led to rapid recovery of deer in North Carolina. By the 1950s white-tails were thriving again, leading to today's bountiful statewide population of at least a million. Quite a rebound from that waning 10,000 individuals 125 years ago, a success for conservation.

Curiously, White-tailed Deer are less common in Ashe County and the North Carolina mountains than in the Piedmont and Coastal Plain. This seems counterintuitive because people think about our mountains as a pristine wildlife paradise. That's the problem: Deer are not as prevalent in deep forests across the Blue Ridge but prefer edges and open areas enhanced by logging and agriculture. Ashe itself has a pretty good mix, so deer can retire to the woods for shelter and wander out to roadsides and your garden or power line cuts to browse and graze (artistic rendering above). That's certainly what happens here at Hilton Pond North when deer drift in several times per day to eat bird seed spillage beneath our feeders—especially when snow covers the ground.

We've been thinking a lot about White-tailed Deer this winter, about how they survive in cold weather and where they are right now in their annual cycle. By coincidence we were walking up one of our trails on 13 February and came across an interesting artifact that told us the 8-point buck that occasionally entered the bird feeding area at Hilton Pond North is no more. Well, to be clear, the buck is doing fine, but he's lost his headdress. What we found was his four-tined left antler (above), very recently discarded as indicated by a tiny bit of fresh blood on its base. Ironically, we even had a photo (below) of this buck on 2 February, just 11 days prior, still wearing both antlers and all eight points.

When we posted our photo of the dropped left antler to Hilton Pond North's Facebook page, several readers asked for an explanation of what was going on. Some didn’t realize bucks lose their antlers annually and grow a new set, while others wondered about the actual process. We promised full explanation, so here goes.

Among the hoofed mammals, there are two main kinds of pointy head ornaments in North America: 1) Horns (made of fingernail-like keratin that is permanent and typically continues to grow throughout the animal's life, typically with a bony core), as in bovids such as cattle, sheep, bison, etc.; and, 2) Antlers (bony appendages that last one year), as in members of the Cervidae (deer, Moose, and Elk). For most cervids just males bear antlers, male AND female Caribou being the exception. (A third New World group is the Pronghorn, a native antelope in which both sexes have horns with a bony core; that's covered by a keratin sheath shed annually by males, irregularly in females. Cattle, by comparison, have bony horns and non-shedding keratin sheaths. Thanks to Wayne Woodroof for the Pronghorn reminder.)

A male White-tailed Deer has two raised spots in front of his ears; these "pedicles" give rise to antlers. In a baby buck they are just bumps that in his first fall may start to form simple spikes. Unlike ordinary skeletal bone growth, elongating antlers have specialized growth zones near their tips where cartilage and new tissue are rapidly produced (Think of it like a tree growing upward. New growth happens at the terminal bud, not at the base.)

The bone starts out as cartilage that gradually ossifies as hard bone from base upward. During peak growth antlers add up to a quarter-inch per day—likely the fastest-growing bone tissue in the Animal Kingdom. From the start antler bone is covered by soft spongy "velvet" (above) that is not just a protective covering but specialized skin with a dense network of blood vessels. These deliver oxygen, nutrients (especially calcium, phosphorus, proteins), and hormones that regulate antler growth. Velvet also contains nerves, so bucks act gingerly with antlers during growth; damaged velvet is painful and can also deform an antler permanently.

In late summer testosterone levels rise and trigger a series of changes: 1) Blood flow to the velvet gradually restricts; 2) Velvet begins to die from lack of blood supply; 3) Bone underneath velvet fully mineralizes and hardens; 4) Dead velvet becomes itchy and uncomfortable; and, 5) The buck rubs his antlers against trees and shrubs to remove old velvet. He's almost ready for action—having just produced up to 10-20 pounds of bone outside his body in 4-5 months.

Through October and into early November, testosterone levels continue climbing and the buck enters the pre-rut phase, rubbing saplings to mark territory (above) and making scrapes on the ground where he deposits scent from glands near his eyes and between his hooves. As late November arrives in upper Ashe County, does begin coming into estrus and the rut kicks into high gear.

The buck becomes almost single-minded; he eats little, sleeps less, and spends his days seeking receptive does while using his antlers to spar with rival bucks to establish dominance. When he finds a doe in heat (below), he'll tend her relentlessly for 24-48 hours, herding and guarding her from other males until she's bred, then move on to find the next receptive female. This exhausting cycle continues through early December until most does have been bred.

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

As the rut winds down and daylight hours lengthen after the winter solstice, a buck's testosterone levels plummet. This hormonal crash triggers specialized cells at the abscission layer—the boundary between pedicle and antler base—to dissolve the bone connection. Within days in February the antlers simply fall off, sometimes both at once with a sudden movement, sometimes days apart. There's minimal bleeding since blood vessels have already constricted. The buck is left with raw, slightly bloody pedicle stumps that scab over within 10 days, and the cycle begins anew. He has essentially no down time when it comes to antlers.

New antler cellular activity starts soon thereafter: Even as that pedicle scab is forming, cells are already starting the growth process at the microscopic level. Within a month a noticeable swelling or bump appears at the pedicle base as a new antler begins to form, still covered in velvet. By late March small velvet "buttons" or "nubs" are clearly visible; antlers are growing and expanding, with older, healthier males often producing larger, more complex antlers.

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

So that's the story. After we found that left antler this week from the eight-point buck, we placed it on the trail and walked north to the still-frozen pond. On the way back, lo and behold, there was his RIGHT antler (above) sticking in the earth not six feet away from the first! We must have missed seeing it on the way up. In a lifetime of roaming the woods we'd never found an antler, and now we have a matched pair from a deer we actually know at Hilton Pond Center. We wonder how many points he'll have next year?

The adventure continues . . . .