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BANDED BIRD RECAPTURES/RETURNS

AT HILTON POND NORTH

16-31 August 2026

SUMMARY: We had NO recaptures or returns of any species during the period, including Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. This is highly unusual for Hilton Pond North. We decline to speculate on possible causes.

Hilton Pond North's Bird & Nature Cam is up and running. Click on the arrow in the image center above to start our 24/7 livestream; sound on to hear bird calls. You can click on the YouTube arrow to subscribe 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 our livestream also serves as a weather cam!)

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#45: 16-31 August 2026

Random observations about Blue Ridge Birds & Nature

● Banded in 2026: 40 species, 1,674 individuals

● All-time banding totals (2024-present): 74 species, 4,852 individuals

● Hilton Pond North "Yard List" (2024-present): 94 species encountered (not all banded). Latest addition: Great Blue Heron (18 Aug 2026).

● Local breeding species (based on nests found, banded females with brood patches, or recent fledglings observed or banded): 21

The table below shows birds banded during the Current Period along with each species' Yearly Tally, and a Grand Total for each since banding began at Hilton Pond North on 10 March 2024. Any new species for the current calendar year are in RED.

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

16-31 August 2026

All banding at Hilton Pond North is done by Dr. Bill Hilton Jr. (federal master permit #21558) under auspices of the U.S. Bird Banding Laboratory and the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, following standard humane procedures for capturing, handling, banding, and releasing wild birds.

NEWLY BANDED BIRDS

AT HILTON POND NORTH

16-31 August 2026

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

Photos & text by Dr. Bill Hilton Jr.

Executive Director, Hilton Pond North: Blue Ridge Birds & Nature

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

SUMMARY: Bird-wise, things were exceedingly slow at Hilton Pond North, with few birds observed or banded. Except for Mourning Doves and American Goldfinches (AMGO), no other species were even making regular seed feeder visits. Although we deployed mist nets and hummingbird traps, we captured just one Red-eyed Vireo, one fledgling male Northern Cardinal (below), and 27 Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. (Please see details in the photo, text, and chart below.)

Apple Podcast #45

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

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

There's something curious about our Chinese Praying Mantids, Tenodera sinensis, at Hilton Pond North: Some individuals are grass-green (late-stage nymph with wing buds, above), others are straw-brown (winged adult, below), and a few fall somewhere in between. A newly-molted mantid may look pale and soft for a day or so before hardening into its final shade, but it doesn't shift later from green to brown, or vice versa. And this isn't a matter of mantids changing color to match their surroundings, chameleon-style; rather, coloration develops during nymphal stages and can be influenced by conditions experienced during development; however, once a mantid reaches adulthood its green or brown coloration is fixed. We find green individuals on dead brown stems and tan individuals in green foliage without much apparent preference either way.

CHINESE PRAYING MANTIDS: TAN OR GREEN . . . AND PREDATORY

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

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

North American commercial trade in mantid oothecae (egg cases) came decades later in the 1930s, and surprisingly appears traceable to the European Mantid, Mantis religiosa, rather than to T. sinensis: Their egg cases were marketed (sample ad above) as biological control for the Spongy (Gypsy) Moth, Lymantria dispar, in the eastern United States. Both mantid species were subsequently swept into the same market, where their oothecae are still sold today (three for $66 on Amazon!) as "natural pest control" for backyard gardeners—a claim not supported by examination of mantid stomachs. Those studies suggest up to three-quarters of what non-native mantids eat isn't garden pests at all, but pollinators like native bees and butterflies, other beneficial predators such as spiders, and assorted plant-feeding insects. (By comparison, up to 99% of insects killed by UV "bug zappers" are actually beneficial, so maybe we shouldn't buy the lights OR mantid oothecae!) And, on top of everything else, imported mantids may be outcompeting and displacing our native Carolina Mantids and even preying on them.

[NOTE: For most of the following discussion we'll be dealing with the non-native Chinese Mantid, although two other species in its same family (Mantidae) are found in North Carolina: European Mantid, Mantis religiosa (which, as its common name indicates, came from the Old World); and our much smaller and highly mottled native Carolina Mantid, Stagmomantis carolina (photo below). Although it's possible all three mantid species could occur here in Ashe County NC, we found no records for either European or Carolina in iNaturalist or the entomology literature. A fourth cryptic, exceedingly slim species, Brunner's Grass Mantid, Brunneria borealis, occurs in coastal North Carolina, but recent DNA studies suggest it may actually be a relatively recent colonist from South America. This insect—in an entirely different tongue-twisting family, Coptopterygidae—is one of ~2,400 mantid species worldwide in which populations apparently consist entirely of females that reproduce by parthenogenesis, i.e., embryos develop from unfertilized egg cells without needing sperm from a male.]

For the historical record, the first documented Chinese Mantid in North America was reported in the fall of 1897, a specimen resting on a tomato vine in a garden in a Philadelphia neighborhood. Its supposed accidental origin was traced to a nearby Germantown nursery that imported ornamental plant stock from China and Japan, although this was never confirmed.

That a female mantid inevitably eats the male's head (and more) during mating is more myth than reality. In wild T. sinensis, cannibalism during copulation is uncommon; field observations put it under 11%—far lower than lab studies with captive pairs. When it happens, a male can represent a substantial share of the female's diet during her reproductive period, and consuming him significantly boosts her fecundity. Males aren't passive about the risk; research shows they actively assess danger, approaching hungrier or more aggressive females more cautiously, with more elaborate courtship behavior. Oddly, hungry females don't attract more males than well-fed ones, but how a male determines a female's hunger status in the first place isn't fully resolved. Some experts suspect it's female-produced pheromones and despite the mantid's prominent eyes, sexual evaluation isn't believed to be related to visual cues.

By the way, "praying" mantis is correct, not "preying." The name refers to the insect's characteristic resting posture—forelegs folded up in front of the body, looking superficially like hands clasped in prayer. The origin of the common name in English goes back centuries, as reflected in the order name Mantodea and the genus Mantis itself, from the Greek word mantis, meaning "religious prophet." ("Preying" mantis is understandable but technically incorrect; since mantids are active predators, "preying" makes intuitive sense as a description of what they actually do.) And since Mantis is indeed a genus, it's more proper to say "praying mantid" rather than "praying mantis" unless you're referring specifically to the European Mantis and its congeners.

As noted, T. sinensis isn't native to North America, and on balance its presence here is an environmental minus—not a catastrophic one, but real. The species' Styrofoam-like oothecae (above) are still sold and marketed as "eco-friendly" garden pest control, but—as noted—that claim doesn't hold up well.

It's well documented that big non-native mantids occasionally take hummingbirds, with most U.S. incidents at sugar water feeders or hummer-pollinated plants. (We took the photo above just this week at Hilton Pond North.) These encounters typically involve Chinese Mantids that—at 4" or more in total length—are easily capable of handling a 3" Ruby-throated Hummingbird if they get a good grip with those predatory forelegs. (Smaller European Mantids at about 2.5-4" are less likely hummingbird predators, and there are far fewer records of 2-2.5" Carolina Mantids catching hummers.) Predation does occur, but we suspect most ornithologists and entomologists would say mantid vs. hummingbird interactions are rare rather than a population level threat to any hummingbird species. If you have a mantid at your feeder, our advice is simply to pick it up and move it; they won't bite or sting—although their forelegs do pinch a little.

And speaking of vision, each of the mantid's large compound eyes is composed of thousands of "ommatidia," each contributing only a single point of light to the visual field. This is coarse spatial resolution compared to a vertebrate eye, partly compensated for by the mantid's roughly 180-degree head swivel. This lets it fixate targets within the eye's sharpest region. The dark "pseudopupil" (see photo) that appears to track an observer is an optical effect of light-absorbing ommatidia pointed straight ahead, not a true pupil.

Mantids are the only invertebrates confirmed to have true stereopsis—binocular depth perception long thought unique to vertebrates. Mantid stereopsis, however, works on a different principle than ours: Rather than directly comparing image patterns between the two eyes, mantids detect changing visual features associated with motion—a strategy well-suited to a predator whose raptorial strike depends on judging the distance of moving prey.

To close, here are a couple of fun facts about praying mantids:

● Mantids have just one ear, located in the ventral midline of the thorax rather than paired like ours, and apparently it's sensitive specifically to ultrasonic frequencies of chiropterans such as Big Brown Bats, Eptesicus fuscus. Lab studies showed that in flight a mantid that hears an attacking bat responds with a sudden downward spiral—a "power dive." Research comparing hearing to surgically deafened mantids found normal individuals escaped bat attacks about 76% of the time. (NOTE: The mantid used in this study was an African species.)

● Caterpillars (above) of Monarch butterflies, Danaus plexippus, sequester toxic cardenolides from milkweed. These provide anti-predator defense, but Chinese Mantids have been observed surgically removing and discarding a caterpillar's gut before eating the rest of the body—throwing away roughly 40% of the prey's biomass. The mantids still ingest some toxins from body tissue with no apparent ill effects, although researchers suspect there could be longer-term physiological costs.

Our close-up (above) taken this week at Hilton Pond North captures a young male Northern Cardinal right in the middle of transitioning out of juvenal plumage. His head and crest are still dominated by soft, buffy-brown juvenal feathering, but a diagnostic red plumage is already pushing through along his forecrown—the first unmistakable sign of a young male molting into adult plumage. There's also a hint of a male's black mask-to-be at the base of the upper mandible. The bill tells a similar story: It's mostly the bright orange-red of an adult but still shows a darker, grayish cast toward the base and gape. Juvenile cardinals fledge with a blackish bill that gradually brightens over the following weeks, so this bird is partway through that shift rather than freshly out of the nest. The dark eye, unfeathered pinkish skin still visible at the gape, and an overall disheveled, still-growing feather structure all fit one of this year's fledglings. We suspect he'll be fully red by late October and be ready to find a mate next spring, just nine months or so after he hatched.

Our Chinese Mantids at Hilton Pond North are fully active in late August and throughout September. By now most nymphs have metamorphosed into winged adults, males are out hunting for females, and those prospective mates are gobbling up prey they need to produce viable eggs. Some robust females may produce up to four oothecae (typically one or two) before finally expiring as autumn frosts hit our mountains. Males, too, will die from the cold, meaning those foamy, well-insulated egg cases contain a next generation of mantids that will hatch late next spring, become tan or green, and start predation anew.

This male Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Papilio glaucus, recently eclosed and still quite fresh in appearance in late August, was nectaring on New York Ironweed, Vernonia noveboracensis. Females of the species—our most common big butterfly at Hilton Pond North—have much more blue in the hindwings and also occur as a black morph. This swallowtail species makes two (sometimes three) annual broods whose eggs hatch as caterpillars and go through the full life cycle, but the final brood diapauses in the pupal stage all winter before eclosing the following spring.

A Great Blue Heron foraging along Silas Creek at the edge of our property on 18 August became the 94th species on Hilton Pond North's "Yard List" (started February 2024). Although these tall wading birds are common in the Carolinas Coastal Plain and Piedmont, there are no rookeries here in the mountains. Thus, our late summer sighting was probably a heron wandering in post-breeding dispersal. It may remain during early winter, but as open water freezes up at higher elevations it likely will move back to more hospitable climes to our south. (Thanks to Gavin MacDonald for sighting the heron.)

Many moons ago, York SC neighbors Pat and Ron Trent gave us a little treasure that we—and the birds—have put to good use through the years. The gift: A Williamsburg pottery salt-glazed "bird bottle." The first historical record of such fabricated gourds is from the 1716 probate of Williamsburg's John Burdett, who listed "16 bird bottles" among his earthenware stock. Also called "Martin pots," they were mounted on poles by colonists to attract Purple Martins they may have valued for mosquito control around homes and stables. If so, what these folks didn't know was mosquitoes make up less than 3% of a Purple Martin's diet. (Thus, along with bug zappers and predatory mantids mentioned above, martins are yet another example of ineffective pest control.)

Both in York and here in the mountains the bottle has housed numerous broods of Carolina Wrens, a set of which hatched on 18 August—which seems quite late in the season. A breeding pair had a nest in the gourd back in May, so this may be the same couple attempting a second (or third) and final time. There appear to be two nestlings—it's hard to see inside, with barely enough room for them and the mother to cuddle up for the night. We've had Hilton Pond North's Bird & Nature Cam livestream focused on the gourd lately (see screenshot above), so for at least a few more days you can catch an occasional glimpse of the parents as they bring food to the nest . . . and maintain sanitation by removing fecal sacs!

Sometimes you can even make out a nestling's yellowish gape "glowing" in the darkness (above)—a great demonstration of how that structure helps the parents know where to put the food. (See livestream below.) After the wrens fledge, we'll move the cam back to a hummingbird feeder, and when THAT season is over we'll focus again on various seed feeders. (P.S. Night views may change.)