Life after breeding

I haven't seen an orange-crowned warbler in over a month. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you. I spent 6 months seeing them virtually every day. But I do still wonder what our birds are up to.

The Alaskan birds stopped breeding in July. By that time the days were getting noticeably shorter (we had to use lights at night!) and the food available to them was getting noticeably scarcer (in our insect samples anyways). Their days in the north were numbered, and so they needed to quickly complete the following tasks: (1) raise young to independence (involves continuing to feed them for a few weeks after fledging), (2) undergo a complete molt (involves all of their flight and body feathers), and (3) prepare for the long migration south (involves changes in organ size and considerable fattening). Presumably, by now they would have completed those tasks and are in the process of making their way south, through Canada and towards the southeastern United States - the location where this particular subspecies happens to overwinter. So many tasks with so little time, I wonder how many will make it to the Gulf Coast in one piece.

On the flip side are the Californian birds and, as you might expect, a post-breeding period that is a tad more mellow. Those birds stopped breeding in May and likely hung out on Catalina for a month or two after that. At some point they would have taken off and flown across the 20-some-odd mile channel between the island and the nearby mainland and made their way to an overwintering site in southern California or northern Baja. Not much is known about these birds beyond what takes place during the breeding season, but it is thought that they molt after they reach their winter quarters - an activity that I can only presume they are doing now.

So there you have it, for the birds anyways; now what about me? Well, my southward migration took place on July 25th, taking me from Fairbanks to Anchorage and then from Anchorage to Los Angeles. Jongmin was there to meet me and the next day we set out on our drive back to Colorado. After a brief stop in Las Vegas and a slightly more lengthy stop in Zion National Park (see photo), we were finally back in Ft. Collins.

Now a week into the Fall semester, we are settling into a new, more sedentary routine. Classes, data, proposals, manuscripts - you know the drill. We are also looking ahead to our next field season, which should get underway in February of next year. At that point I plan to continue blogging about our fieldwork; and in the meantime, I'd like to thank anyone who bothered to read about our adventures this year. I hope you will join us again!