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CAMP REPORTS 2003

A report on RMBO On the Wing Camp

28 June-9 July 2003

By Kai Reed

I woke up at 1 am to drive 2 1/2 hours to LaGuardia International Airport in New York. We arrived at 4 am. While checking in, I got kicked off the flight because I was flying Unaccompanied Minor and the flight was changing planes in Detroit. The next flight left at 1 pm so we had to wait, luckily we could go birding at Jamaica Bay where I saw Glossy Ibis, Plegadis falcinellus, Willow Flycatcher, Empidonax traillii and Brown Thasher, Toxostoma rufum.

By the time I got to Colorado to join On The Wing camp, I had to be picked up by Jennie Rectenwald, one of the counselors. We drove to join the rest of the campers who had trapped and banded a Burrowing Owl, Athene cunicularia. It was cool to be able to hold it , and of course it was the closest I had ever seen one. Then we drove to the Stone House ,one of Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory offices at Barr Lake. By the time I got to sleep at 11pm Central Standard Time, I had been up for 24 hours!!

The other campers were: Jessie, Jillian, Jacob, Robert, Tim and Travis. Our other counselor was Glen Giroir. The next day we packed the van for a 5-hour drive to Dinosaur National Monument in Utah. On the way there I saw my first Golden Eagle, Aquila chrysaetos, a prong-horned antelope and badger. My life birds while we were there were: Brewer's Blackbird, Euphagus cyanocephalus, and Juniper Titmouse, Baeolophus ridgwayi. After four nights at Dinosaur, we went to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument where we started to work on our research papers about Green-tailed towhees, Pipilo chlorurus, and Spotted Towhees, Pipilo maculatus. We spent most of our time at Black Canyon working on our papers but also went on side trips looking for Owls and Dippers. My life birds at Black Canyon were: Western Tanager, Piranga ludoviciana, Clarke's Nutcracker, Nucifraga columbiana, Black Swift, Cypseloides niger and American Dipper, Cinclus mexicanus. We stayed five nights at Black Canyon and then drove to Grand Junction in preparation for our project presentations. In the evening we went to camp on Ancanpadre to look for Lewis's Woodpecker, Melaneroes lewis. 

In the morning we had to make pancakes on a pot lid instead of a pan and a knife for a spatula. After breakfast we saw Lewis's Woodpeckers flying around our campsite. During camp we did a scientific project on Spotted and Green-tailed Towhees. We thought that Spotted Towhees used the upper parts of bushes and Green-tailed Towhees used the lower therefore eliminating competition. We made a plan to see if this was true. First we located and identified the bird, we measured the height and width of the bush. We measured how far from the ground, how far from the middle and edge of the bush that the bird was perched. Finally we recorded all the collected data on graph paper. When we finished our projects we saw that we were right. Spotted Towhees tend to use the higher parts of the bushes while Green-tailed Towhees tend to use the lower parts. 

One of my favorite parts at camp was catching and banding birds with a mist net. One time we actually flushed a bird into the nets. Glen pished a bird into a bush close to the nets, then we circled around and scared it into the nets. It was a Spotted Towhee, our first for the day! Other birds we caught n the nets were: Green-tailed Towhee, Warbling Vireo, Vireo gilvus, Dusky Flycatcher, Empidonax oberholseri, Yellow Warbler, Dendroica petechi, and Orange-crowned Warbler, Vermivora celata. On the way to Jone's Hole one of the campers was asking about the likelihood of seeing Greater Sage Grouse, Centrocercus urophasianus. Just then we came over a small rise in the road, and on the other side there were three sage grouse sitting in the middle of the road. On closer inspection we saw at least 10 more hiding in the sage. This was my first time seeing the grouse and I got great looks out of the van windows. It was an amazing experience. 

I liked this camp because I got to bird with other people my age, go to new places and see new birds. I had a lot of fun.

October 2003

These young birders attended the camps/events they report on with the help of ABA scholarships.