This Week At Hilton Pond North is an on-going series of original photo essays—posted more or less weekly—about natural history happenings here in the Blue Ridge Mountains of upper Ashe County, North Carolina. If you want a free e-mail reminder about each new installment, click here to SUBSCRIBE.

Like to listen? After viewing the photo essay a free "Deep Dive" audio podcast is available on Spotify (click arrow) or Apple Podcasts (click episode number).

If you like what you're reading and would like to help support the work of Hilton Pond North, please click on the PayPal Donate Now button below or visit our FUNDING page for other ways you can contribute.

If you have questions or comments about the current installment, send an e-mail to thisweek@hiltonpond.org

Back to previous photo essay; on to next one

#####

BANDED BIRD RECAPTURES/RETURNS

AT HILTON POND NORTH

1-15 September 2026

SUMMARY: We had just one recapture/return of any species during the period at Hilton Pond North, a third-year female American Goldfinch with an old brood patch indicating she had finished breeding for the season.

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!)

Podcast Link At End

HOME

Contents

Contact

Back to previous photo essay; on to next one

#46: 1-15 September 2026

Random observations about Blue Ridge Birds & Nature

● Banded in 2026: 41 species, 1,727 individuals

● All-time banding totals (2024-present): 74 species, 4,864 individuals

● Hilton Pond North "Yard List" (2024-present): 95 species encountered (not all banded). Latest addition: Bald Eagle (15 Sep 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

1-15 September 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

1-15 September 2026

Loading current temperature...

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: Fall migration was just beginning this week at Hilton Pond North, with relatively few birds observed or banded. Captures included two Carolina Chickadees, a Tufted Titmouse, and an Indigo Bunting—all likely local individuals—plus an immature Black-throated Green Warbler that was possibly a migrant. Our 47 Ruby-throated Hummingbirds during the period comprised almost exactly a quarter of RTHU banded so far for the entire year. (Please see details in the photo, text, and chart below.)

Apple Podcast #46

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

EARLY SEPTEMBER BIRDINESS, NEAR AND FAR

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

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

In our last installment we wrote about the natural history of Praying Mantids and regretted not having an image of a mantid’s external ear for the section about hearing. This week at Hilton Pond North a cooperative male Chinese Mantid, Tenodera sinensis, paused outside the window of our cabin and allowed a close view of its underside (above). There, along the midline of the thorax directly between the mantid's last leg pair was a tiny, dark reddish longitudinal slit—the external opening to the ear chamber—so we focused our iPhone 16 Pro in macro mode and got our elusive photo.

The single ear actually contains two tympanic membranes too close together in the chamber to provide stereophonic hearing, meaning a mantid is unable to localize sound direction the way our two separated ears can. For example, a mantid may hear a hungry Big Brown Bat echolocating prey, but it doesn't know in which direction the bat is flying; thus, when chased the mantid simply makes a quick power dive to outmaneuver the winged predator. (Incidentally, hearing is estimated to occur in only about 65% of all mantid species, and even among those that hear the sense may be absent or greatly reduced in flightless females that have no need to evade aerial bat attacks.)

American Goldfinch banded here 04/22/25; now 3rd year fe male

NOTE: This AMGO appears to be a year-round local resident breeding at or very near Hilton Pond North.

Early September was an eventful time for Hilton Pond North's birds—not only in our own backyard but at someone else's house far to the north. Here in upper Ashe County Carolina Chickadees and Tufted Titmice finally started grabbing sunflower seeds again from our big platform feeder, having spent the summer dining on more natural foods in neighboring woodlands. We also banded some special Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, watched a very late nest of Carolina Wrens fledge three young, caught a probably fall migrant, and added another new species to our comprehensive "Bird Yard List." And then there was that Purple Finch whose travels and fate we just learned about in correspondence from the federal Bird Banding Laboratory (BBL).

Last month on 20 August 2026, Kathy Repp saw a banded brown Purple Finch (PUFI, top photo) at a sunflower seed feeder at her residence near Manistique MI. Kathy's home is on Indian Lake, itself just off the northernmost end of Lake Michigan. She was able to get a close video of the finch feeding very slowly and the next day found it dead with band . She reported this number to the Banding Lab that, in turn, sent us a "Report to Bander" (above) with pertinent data and Kathy's contact info. As noted on the report, we banded this PUFI 05 April 2025 at the Lat/Long of 36.3°N, -81.2°W (near Lansing NC), coded as an after-hatch-year (Age-1) bird of unknown sex (Sex-0).

Because we knew banding and encounter dates for the PUFI, we could determine that in 2026 it became what we call an after-second-year bird, so the remaining question was about its sex. We contacted Kathy who then sent us the video and noted the Purple Finch was still brown at her place, so it had to be female; a male of that age would have raspberry plumage. Plotting banding/encounter locations with Google Earth (see map above), we determined this female PUFI was found almost exactly 700 straight-line air miles from Lansing—our furthest foreign encounter so far from Hilton Pond North. It was probably about to migrate north when we banded it in April 2025, and when found by Kathy Repp this August was on or near its breeding grounds in Michigan or neighboring Canada.

Based on its behavior and appearance in the video, we suspect the bird perished from mycoplasmal conjunctivitis, a highly contagious respiratory ailment sometimes called "finch feeder disease." We deeply appreciate Kathy's volunteer cooperation in reporting her find of our far-flying but now deceased Purple Finch from the Blue Ridge.

A weekend e-mail to us from the BBL included a "Report to Bander," one of those usually auspicious documents that tells us a banded bird has been encountered elsewhere. Sometimes the bird was recaptured and recorded by a distant bander, or sometimes it's a banded bird a homeowner caught and released after a non-fatal building strike. Often, however, the report documents a bird found dead after a vehicle or window collision, a feral cat attack, or disease; the latter was apparently the case with this week’s report.

Closer to home on the front porch of our earth-sheltered cabin at Hilton Pond North we placed a pottery replica of a "martin bottle," a device used by settlers at Williamsburg to attract cavity-nesting Purple Martins; this practice they supposedly learned from Native Americans who hung gourds for that purpose. Tradition has it the gourd- and bottle-hanging folks believed martins would consume large numbers of people-biting mosquitos—which they don't. Regardless, the bottles DO attract a variety of birds and ours has housed Carolina Wrens each year since we moved to upper Ashe County. This year wrens successfully nested in the bottle in late April; in late August we were surprised to again find wren eggs therein. That most recent clutch was incubated by the female and hatched on 31 August, after which both parents made numerous daily visits to bring food AND then depart with large fecal sacs—a useful nest sanitation strategy.

There hardly seemed room in the bottle for three chicks, but room there was as all continued to grow. One shown in the photo above seemed larger and fledged ahead of its siblings on 12 September, followed two days later by the others. Two points to emphasize: 1) Only 13 days elapsed between the first youngster’s hatching and fledging (a rather rapid growth rate for a passerine); and, 2) A nest in September seems rather late, even for Carolina Wrens known to triple brood. With nestlings now gone, we cleaned out the bottle and re-hung it with good reason: We've observed one and maybe two wrens using the device as a nocturnal winter roost site!

The Garden Gurlz (aka Amy Girten and Kim Pierce Lascola) journeyed once again from Shawnee Hills OH to Hilton Pond North in mid-September, not only to install plants and groom our native garden but also to help celebrate the 80th birthday of the resident bird bander. On the 15th (the bander's natal date) the trio ventured out on local trails to bird and botanize, ending late that afternoon at Witch-hazel Hill—a high spot with open view on the southwest end of our 35+ acres. Alerted by loud croaking, we all looked up to see a Common Raven diving after an even larger soaring bird. There, against a perfectly clear blue sky, we watched for several minutes a much-desired Bald Eagle (BAEA)—new to the property and now the 95th species on Hilton Pond North's "Yard List." This big, dark-bodied bird with completely white head and flat flight profile was unmistakably a BAEA, although the tail itself had pale brownish tips and flecks. It takes about five years for a Bald Eagle's head and tail to be fully white, so we suspect this sub-adult individual was in its fourth year. Not a bad birthday bird.

Although the 15th annual National Moth Week was officially back on the last full week in July, this summer and fall we've continued on and off to run our nighttime moth traps: Three fluorescent black lights (UV) hung against a couple of vertical white sheets outside our office door at Hilton Pond North. We don't actually trap moths but simply observe and photograph them—usually with our trusty iPhone 16 Pro outfitted with a ring light. Most nocturnal visitors aren't very large—some less than a quarter-inch long—and we've yet to attract any of the big native saturniids such as Luna, Cecropia, or Polyphemus Moths. Our largest has been a Darling Underwing, Catocala cara (above, with ~3" wingspan), one of which tarried just long enough this week for a quick photo before flying off into the night. This species occurs east of the Rockies in the U.S. and barely into Canada; its larvae eat leaves of Eastern Cottonwood, Populus deltoides, and various willows, Salix spp.

Our big platform feeder has seldom been visited this summer—despite being stocked with black sunflower. Oddly enough, our most frequent warm weather visitors were Mourning Doves that typically dine on millet and milo rather than oilseed. In recent days, however, fledgling Carolina Chickadees and Tufted Titmice have finally discovered the feeder, perhaps introduced by parents that also have been partaking. The screenshot above of a hungry titmouse came from Hilton Pond North's 24/7 Nature Cam livestream—with real-time weatherstrip!—that will focus on the platform feeder now that Carolina Wrens have fledged from the front porch nest and Ruby-throated Hummingbirds have almost all gone south.

Speaking of hummers, this week was significant because we trapped and banded Hilton Pond North's 500th Ruby-throated Hummingbird (RTHU) since 2 July 2024, a young male with just one iridescent feather; he'll replace that this winter with a full red gorget while hanging out in the Neotropics. Having banded 154 RTHU in 2024 and 171 last year, we actually ended the current period with 181 RTHU on 15 September—obviously a new local record. Late date for a new ruby-throat at our upper Ashe County location was 7 October (2024), so we anticipate a max of 2-3 more weeks of hummer banding in 2026.

Black-throated Green Warblers (BTNW, immature male, above) nest primarily across coniferous and mixed forests of the northeastern U.S. and Great Lakes region, plus boreal Canada; the species also maintains a disjunct Appalachian breeding population extending south down the mountains into northern Alabama and Georgia. (Curiously, there's even a separate, ecologically distinct coastal population in swamp forests of Virginia and Carolinas.) Here in the southern Blue Ridge, BTNW is considered an uncommon breeder and common migrant, nesting in mature conifer and deciduous forests above 2,500'. Since Hilton Pond North is at ~3,000' it's possible this warbler nests locally, but we found very few eBird summer records for Ashe County NC as a whole. The Merlin iPhone app often detects the species during spring migration but not June through August. We plan to be more thorough in our search for Black-throated Green Warblers during the 2027 field season.

Like other underwing moths, the Darling Underwing's forewings are highly camouflaged and blend fully against mottled tree bark on which the moth rests. The hindwings, however, are brightly colored—in this case a rich pink. As we moved in on the moth for a closer photo it spread its forewings and suddenly flashed the pink hindwings (above), a behavior that can startle predators long enough for the elusive insect to escape. It didn't scare US but certainly provided more appreciation for this moth and its ornamented underwing relatives at Hilton Pond North.