Three new species were captured during the week: Gray-chested Dove (at Finca Cantaros), Violet-crowned Woodnymph and Spotted Woodcreeper (both at Finca Sofia)! We are always excited to have a “first” capture so to have three in one session was a thrill.

We found three banded birds that we record as “foreign recaptures”. This means they were banded by another research team that uses different sites and different band numbers. It is always fascinating to catch “someone else’s” bird and much can be learned from these data points. Of course, we will submit the records to see where the birds were originally banded.

The first was a Green Hermit that we know was originally banded by Stanford University researchers as a juvenile in March of 2011 because this was the second time we have caught it! The Stanford team captured this individual in Melissa’s Meadow, an area across the Rio Java in the Las Cruces forest that has served as a reforestation study site for many years. We caught it for the first time on November 27, 2011 at Finca Cantaros and again on January 22, 2012 at the same site. We feel now that this bird (band #A55817) is an old friend and we look forward to seeing it again!

The second foreign recapture was another hummingbird — a Snowy-bellied Hummingbird — with the band #A48431, netted on January 24 at Finca Sofia.

Finally, we caught an Orange-billed Nightingale-Thrush with the band code CSIB1616, at Finca Corteza on January 27, 2012.

At this session we welcomed participants new and old, including a group from Connecticut Audubon Society Birdcraft Museum: Faithful-Returner Judy Richardson and Somewhat-Less-Faithful-But-Nonetheless-A-Returner Patty Scott, plus a new bander, Julian Sproule. Judy runs the banding station at Birdcraft (the oldest, continually-run banding station in the state) and Patty and Julian are among her crew there.

Finally, I am happy to report our Principal Investigator Dr. Steve Latta of the National Aviary attended this session as did our supporters and trainers from San Jose, Juan Pablo Elizondo and Jorge Leiton. Steve has started working closely with us on compiling data that will be used to write several papers about the project. Needless to say, we are eager to help him accomplish this!