Hi,

We went back to Little Mountain to cover some areas to the south of where
we were Wednesday.  Our procedure is to find a likely spot to set up the 6m
mist net, then set the decoy and speaker close to the middle of the net.
We then retreat 10 to15 m.  We play a recording to attract male territorial
Juncos to the decoy.

It is our experience that if we are in a good spot it takes less than 5
minutes before we have a male or multiple males fussing in the area they
eventually get worked up enough to fly at the decoy and get caught so we
can band them.

Or first location was per the normal routine.  We had a response within 3
minutes and then an unbanded bird in the net.

Extracting the bird from the net Holdon Biologist Mike Watson lost his
purchase on the little bird and it escaped.

We tired again but now even though we had 2 birds in the vicinity and
countersinging, none would fly at the decoy. After about 15 minutes we
decided to move about 50m south and see if we could attract different
birds.

This set up attracted a bird from the north, which may have been the same
one who got away earlier.  After checking out the decoy he continued to
countersing but went to the ground and began foraging and generally acting
unconcerned.  We gave up  and moved ~150m North.  Got a little
countersinging but no one came to the area other than for a quick looky loo.

We moved North again.  Almost to the area we had covered Wednesday. Again
we quickly attracted a bird but he was not agitated and after a bit of
countersinging and looking at the decoy went to the ground and began to
forage.  We gave up.

Since we had good success in the first location we went back there as it
was now 2 hours later.  We attracted a bird who was countersinging the
Nashville Warbler like song.  This song is something I have documented
previously in our local Juncos and got video of this back in 2016.  Again
the bird went to the ground and began foraging.  As an experiment I got
myself positioned so the bird was between the net and me.  Once I got to
flush distance the bird adeptly flew up and outside and around the support
pole of the net. Indicating he knew exactly where the net was located.

While we had good success earlier in the week.it would seem the Juncos on
Little Mountain are onto our tactics. Today's score Juncos - 4, Scientists
- 0.

Also of note when we got back to the cars we heard another Junco doing the
Nashville Warbler like song. These locations are deep in the woods and well
away from any Chipping Sparrows.

Haans

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