gringorio
Member
Botteri's sparrow
hi
I wasn't sure which forum to post this Botteri's sparrow nest photo, so here it is...
For anyone who's ever tried nest searching in dense medium to tall bunch grasses, you'll appreciate the difficulty in finding them. We used two methods: Watching for birds carrying nest material early in the season and watching for birds carrying food later in the season once the female was sitting on eggs and after the young had hatched.
Seeing a bird with food did not guarantee that you would find the nest. Most of the time the bird would fly in and perch some where near the nest, then drop to the ground somewhere near the nest and, as we soon began to realize, would run through the dense grasses on the ground to the nest. At first we always looked where the bird dropped to the ground, but once we realized that this was usually a fake-out we began to catch on.
Once the bird came in with food, we would approach the area as quietly as possible and find the nest by flushing the bird. We stayed at the nest only long enough to note it's location and count the number of young (or eggs as the case may be).
The first season, we were lucky to find one nest a day after 8-10 hours of watching the Botteri's behavior, but by the third season some of us managed to find 3 - 5 nests per day. Spending that much time watching one species of bird, you learn a lot about their behavior and searching for nests becomes an addictive challenge. Plus, you get to see all the other bird species active in the area.
Here are a couple links with interesting information:
http://audubon2.org/webapp/watchlist/viewSpecies.jsp?id=43
http://www.audubon.org/local/sanctuary/appleton/
gringorio
hi
I wasn't sure which forum to post this Botteri's sparrow nest photo, so here it is...
For anyone who's ever tried nest searching in dense medium to tall bunch grasses, you'll appreciate the difficulty in finding them. We used two methods: Watching for birds carrying nest material early in the season and watching for birds carrying food later in the season once the female was sitting on eggs and after the young had hatched.
Seeing a bird with food did not guarantee that you would find the nest. Most of the time the bird would fly in and perch some where near the nest, then drop to the ground somewhere near the nest and, as we soon began to realize, would run through the dense grasses on the ground to the nest. At first we always looked where the bird dropped to the ground, but once we realized that this was usually a fake-out we began to catch on.
Once the bird came in with food, we would approach the area as quietly as possible and find the nest by flushing the bird. We stayed at the nest only long enough to note it's location and count the number of young (or eggs as the case may be).
The first season, we were lucky to find one nest a day after 8-10 hours of watching the Botteri's behavior, but by the third season some of us managed to find 3 - 5 nests per day. Spending that much time watching one species of bird, you learn a lot about their behavior and searching for nests becomes an addictive challenge. Plus, you get to see all the other bird species active in the area.
Here are a couple links with interesting information:
http://audubon2.org/webapp/watchlist/viewSpecies.jsp?id=43
http://www.audubon.org/local/sanctuary/appleton/
gringorio
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