Copyright (c) 2009 University of Nebraska - Lincoln All rights reserved. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/biosciornithology Recent documents in Papers in Ornithology en-us Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:48:05 PDT 3600 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/biosciornithology/52 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/biosciornithology/52 Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:07:15 PDT The diversity of wildlife in Grand Teton National Park and its environs draws millions to the valley of Jackson Hole every year, but few are the visitors who are able to observe individual species over the course of several seasons. Paul Johnsgard, a noted naturalist who has written many books on the waterfowl of the world, here integrates his own observations with those who have studied Teton wildlife in the past. The result is a compassionate, simple reconstruction of the lives of a few individuals from spring through early autumn. Teton Wildlife describes the migration of a herd of antelope to the lower flatlands of the Gros Ventre Range in early spring; the lives of a family of coyote on the sagebrush flats of Jackson Hole; the mating ceremony of a pair of Sandhill Cranes on the willow flats near Jackson Lake dam; and the activity of several other species in a wide range of habitats from barren glacial cirques to lush aspen groves. In the course of describing common species, Johnsgard emphasizes the remarkable animal diversity of the Teton area, as well as the complexity of interrelationships existing among organisms there. And in an advocacy borne out of his sympathetic portrayal of the biotic community, Johnsgard makes a case for the biological value of national parks such as Grand Teton. "In a sense," writes Johnsgard, "the greatest obligation that one who is able to do research in a national park or national wildlife refuge must recognize is the debt of admiration for the foresighted people who had the courage and strength to set aside these areas in perpetuity for their enjoyment by everyone." Paul A. Johnsgard is Foundation Professor of Life Sciences at the University of Nebraska. He is the author of over a dozen books on waterfowl, the most recent of which is Those of the Gray Wind: The Sandhill Cranes. A book on the hummingbirds of the world and their biology is in preparation. Johnsgard's fieldwork for Teton Wildlife was carried out over two summers at Jackson Hole Biological Station, an institute sponsored by the University of Wyoming and the New York Zoological Society. This book is xii + 128 pages, and includes 32 photographs, 16 drawings, and 1 map. <small> Mozilla Firefox users: There is a known bug in the Firefox PDF plug-in (which opens PDFs within the browser window) that will crash if a file exceeds its buffer size. It will tell you "The file is damaged and cannot be repaired" (which is not true). There are 3 remedies: 1. Right-click and download the PDF outside the browser (i.e., "Save link as ...") 2. Change your Firefox settings to open PDFs with regular Adobe Reader (or Acrobat) instead of the plug-in version. This is reached under Tools > Options > Applications. PDF files will then open in a separate Adobe Reader (or Acrobat) window, not inside the browser window. 3. Download the file with Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, etc.</small> Paul A. Johnsgard http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/biosciornithology/51 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/biosciornithology/51 Thu, 27 Aug 2009 08:08:31 PDT Persons living in Nebraska often feel that they are living in a cultural wasteland; its citizenry preoccupied with violent sports such as hunting and football. Yet many are unaware that they are actually residing in one of the prime locations in the entire world for observing and enjoying some of the most aesthetically appealing of all the world's biological attractions. The area around Kingsley Dam and Lake McConaughy, for example, is known to have attracted more than 330 bird species, including 104 breeders (plus 17 probable breeders) making it the third-most species-rich bird location in the interior U.S.A. (after Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge in southern Texas and Cheyenne Bottoms WMA in central Kansas). More impressively, the spring congregations of cranes and waterfowl along the Platte Valley have recently been ranked by Roger Pasquier (writing in Forbes Magazine, 1997) as the greatest bird spectacle on earth. It has been estimated that bird-watching activities in the U.S.A. increased 155 percent during the 1990's, or at a more rapid rate than all other outdoor sports including walking, skiing and hiking, whereas fishing, hunting and tennis have all actually declined in popularity. Moneys now spent on wildlife recreation (over $100 billion) now exceeds total cash receipts from all livestock sales ("Wildlife Recreation," in The Main Street Economist, April, 2004). In 2001, 46 million birdwatchers spent some $32 billion. At least 63 million people in the U.S.A. feed or watch birds at home. In Nebraska an estimated 23.1 million dollars per year are spent on non-consumptive bird-related activities, and about 800 people have related jobs (Bird Conservation, spring, 1997, pp 6-8). Every month of the year has its own bird-related attractions in Nebraska, as the following monthly breakdown will suggest. See also the migration calendar near the end of this book for more detailed information. Contents: Birdwatching Throughout the Year in Nebraska Fundamentals of Birdwatching Optical Equipment and Acoustic Aids Reference Materials Vernacular and Technical Names of Birds Backyard Birding Opportunities Monitoring Bird Populations Bird-finding Areas and Birding Information Sources in Nebraska Maps showing Nebraska Counties and County Numbering Systems I. THE FAR WESTERN REGION: PINE-RIDGE COUNTRY II. THE WEST-CENTRAL REGION: SANDHILLS COUNTRY III. THE EAST-CENTRAL REGION: SANDHILL CRANE COUNTRY IV. THE EASTERN REGION: LOWER PLATTE AND MISSOURI VALLEYS References County Index Annotated Checklist of Regularly Occurring Nebraska Birds Calendar of Nebraska's Migratory Birds Nebraska Bird Specialties: Where and When to See Them Habitats of Significance to Nebraska Birds Latitude/Longitude Data for State-owned Birding Sites List of Mapped Birding Sites, By County County Maps Showing Birding Sites Species Guide to Sanctuaries, Refuges and Other Birding Sites <small> Mozilla Firefox users: There is a known bug in the Firefox PDF plug-in (which opens PDFs within the browser window) that will crash if a file exceeds its buffer size. It will tell you "The file is damaged and cannot be repaired" (which is not true). There are 3 remedies: 1. Right-click and download the PDF outside the browser (i.e., "Save link as ...") 2. Change your Firefox settings to open PDFs with regular Adobe Reader (or Acrobat) instead of the plug-in version. This is reached under Tools > Options > Applications. PDF files will then open in a separate Adobe Reader (or Acrobat) window, not inside the browser window. 3. Download the file with Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, etc.</small> Paul A. Johnsgard http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/biosciornithology/50 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/biosciornithology/50 Thu, 13 Aug 2009 10:16:49 PDT As a boy in North Dakota, Paul Johnsgard measured his winters, not by conventional time units, but in the days it took for the snow geese to return from their wintering grounds to Lake Traverse. In early April, with hip boots, camera, and binoculars, he awaited the arrival of the first flocks from the Gulf of Mexico. Johnsgard was not alone in admiring the beauty and strength of the snow goose. For centuries this bird has signified the passing seasons to the Indians--its white feathers a symbol of the breath of life and a reminder of the roles the birds played as messengers between heaven and earth. The importance of the geese in these roles is evidenced by their prominence in Indian lore and myth. In this book the author relates the life cycle of the snow goose and its migrations. He describes its travels and the dangers it faces from hunters who kill up to 300,000 birds each year. Song of the North Wind contains twenty-seven photographs taken by the author and seventeen original drawings by Paul Geraghty. "Animal art," writes illustrator Paul Geraghty, "has been concerned with how animals look--today we should perhaps be concerned with what animals mean." Geraghty has worked as an artist for the Royal Ontario Museum for the past eight years. His innovative drawings have appeared in many magazines deVoted to natural history. This online electronic edition contains a new "Afterword" by the author, with updated migration maps and additional bibliographical references. <small> Mozilla Firefox users: There is a known bug in the Firefox PDF plug-in (which opens PDFs within the browser window) that will crash if a file exceeds its buffer size. It will tell you "The file is damaged and cannot be repaired" (which is not true). There are 3 remedies: 1. Right-click and download the PDF outside the browser (i.e., "Save link as ...") 2. Change your Firefox settings to open PDFs with regular Adobe Reader (or Acrobat) instead of the plug-in version. This is reached under Tools > Options > Applications. PDF files will then open in a separate Adobe Reader (or Acrobat) window, not inside the browser window. 3. Download the file with Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, etc.</small> Paul A. Johnsgard http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/biosciornithology/49 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/biosciornithology/49 Mon, 18 May 2009 11:57:23 PDT LIST OF SUBJECTS Cape Teal. Anas capensis (Gmelin) . Spur-winged Goose. Plectropterus gambensis (Linnaeus) . Secretary Bird. Sagittarius serpentarius (Miller). White-necked Vulture. Pseudogyps africanus (Salvadori) . Lappet-faced Vulture. Torgos tracheliotus nubicus Smith. White-headed Vulture. Trigonoceps occipitalis (Burchell) . Egyptian Vulture. Neophron percnopterus (Linnaeus) . Abyssinian Lanner. Falco biarmicus abyssinicus Neumann. African Swallow-tailed Kite. Chelictinea riocourii (Vieillot and Oudart). Black-shouldered Kite. Elanus caeruleus (Desfontaines) . African Tawny Eagle. Aquila rapax raptor Brehm. Bateleur Eagle. Terathopius ecaudatus (Daudin) . Bateleur Eagle. Terathopius ecaudatus (Daudin) . African Sea Eagle. Cuncuma vocifer Daudin. African Sea Eagle (Immature). Cuncuma vocifer Daudin. Bearded Vulture. Gypaetus barbatus meridionalis (Keys. and Blas.). African Harrier Hawk. Gymnogenys typicus (Smith). Black-bellied Bustard. Lissotis melanogaster (Ruppell) . Lowe's Sand-grouse. Eremialector quadricinctus lowei Grant. Green Pigeon. Vinago waalia (Meyer) . Gray Plantain-eater. Crinifer zonurus (Rüppell) . Pigmy Kingfisher. Corythornis cristata (Pallas). Gray-headed Kingfisher. Halcyon leucocephala (Muller) . Crested Hornbill. Bycanistes cristatus (Ruppell) . African Night Heron. Nycticorax leuconotus (Wagler) . Narina Trogon. Apaloderma narina (Stephens). Nile Helmet-shrike. Prionops concinnata Sundevall. Thick-billed Raven. Corvultur crassirostris Brehm. Abyssinian Wolf. Canis simensis Rüppell. Gelada Baboon. Theropithecus gelada Rüppell. Gelada Baboon. Theropithecus gelada Rüppell. Abyssinian Duiker. Sylvicapra abyssinicus Thomas. This portfolio was published by the Field Museum of Natural History in 1930 in an edition consisting of a slipcased set of 32 separate 10" × 12" lithographed plates on 10-point (approximately) natural-white stock. Each image was backed with a brief description. The images were presented within warm gray borders of approximately 1". Some plates were vertical, others horizontal, depending on the image; the descriptions on the back reflected the orientation of the front image. The portfolio also included a 4-page folio leaflet containing a 3-page essay by Wilfred Osgood and a "List of Subjects." The electronic edition presented here was prepared from a copy of the original published portfolio held by the Special Collections Department of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries. This copy was received as a gift from Mrs. C. Harold Claytor. Scanning was done by the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities. Images were scanned at 300 dpi and saved as RGB files in JPEG format. Color corrections were made using Adobe Photoshop and the layouts were done in Adobe InDesign by Paul Royster of the Office of Scholarly Communication. The electronic edition is presented as 12" × 12" pages to allow for both vertical and horizontal images. The reverse-side descriptions, originally printed in medium gray, are shown here in black. All images are shown at their original size. Some slight damage to edges of the borders of a few plates have been electronically restored. The portfolio was published without copyright notice, making it public domain according to the law in force at that time. Louis Agassiz Fuertes http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/biosciornithology/48 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/biosciornithology/48 Tue, 31 Mar 2009 13:50:18 PDT Migrations of the imagination are those images, sounds, smells, and tastes that transport one to another time and place, possibly as close as Nine- Mile Prairie near Lincoln, or perhaps as far away as the Canadian high arctic, and to times that may be decades or centuries removed from one's personal life and experiences. They hold us in their thrall, expanding our vision, and touching our lives in special ways. They help retrieve our own memories or perhaps stir us to make new ones that will live with us for a lifetime. The migratory images here are those of nature, especially of nature on the move, such as flocks of migrating cranes and waterfowl along the Platte Valley in spring or the more placid movements of prairie grasses waving in an autumn wind. The photographs in the exhibit are those of Michael Forsberg. Michael is a native Nebraskan whose eye for composition and catching the critical moment are becoming legendary. His wonderful image on the cover of this catalog is especially appropriate to the migration theme, as it depicts not only native plants but also a recent European immigrant species, Iris pseudacorus. The ink drawings and wooden sculptures are my own, which were chosen to try to supplement the photographs. Some of the sculptures are decoy-like creations that emulate the folk-art tradition in trying to catch the bare essence of a bird; others are more realistic depictions of living birds. There are also paintings by some of the best-known but now deceased nature artists of the past century, such as George Miksch Sutton, a Lincoln-born bird artist and ornithologist of national fame, and Wayne Willis, a Kansas wildlife artist of great talent. Sir Peter Scott, an internationally known British artist-environmentalist and one of the best painters of migratory waterfowl of the twentieth century, is also represented. Some contemporary Nebraska or regional artists such as Mark Marcuson of Lincoln and Thomas Mangelsen of Omaha, have been included. I hope that collectively this exhibit evokes both a sense of visual pleasure and a greater appreciation of the grandeur to be found in our living world. May these images transport you safely to places or scenes you have personally experienced, let you revisit some of your favorite Great Plains haunts, or even take you to more distant places so far known only in your imagination. Paul A. Johnsgard http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/biosciornithology/47 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/biosciornithology/47 Wed, 11 Feb 2009 12:43:05 PST An exhibition of photographs by Linda R. Brown, Josef Kren, Paul A. Johnsgard, Allison Johnson, and Stephen Johnson; paintings by Allison Johnson; drawings by Paul A. Johnsgard; and related Darwiniana. Sponsored by the Center for Great Plains Studies, James Stubbendieck, director, and the Great Plains Art Museum, Amber Mohr, curator, in honor of the bicentennial of Charles Darwin's birth (1809-2009) and the 150th anniversary of The Origin of Species (1859). EXHlBlTORS Linda R. Brown, Lincoln, Nebraska. B.S. (Pharmacy) University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, 1965. Paul A. Johnsgard, Lincoln, Nebraska. Foundation Professor Emeritus, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. B.S. (Zoology) North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, 1953; M.S. (Wildlife Management) Washington State University, Pullman, WA, 1955; Ph.D. (Vertebrate Zoology), Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 1959. Allison Johnson, Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Undergraduate (Biology) St. Olaf College, St. Olaf, MN. Stephen Johnson, Scottsbluff, Nebraska. B.S. University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 1971; Ph.D. (Anatomy) University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 1976; M.D. University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, 1980. Josef Kren, Lincoln, Nebraska. B.S. Jan Evangelista Purkyne University, Czech Republic, 1985; Ph.D. (Vertebrate Zoology) University of Brno, Czech Republic, 1989; Ph.D. (Ornithology) University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, 1996. EXHIBITORS' STATEMENT UNDERTAKING THE GALAPAGOS OBSERVATIONS and selecting, assembling, and preparing the associated photographs, drawings, and paintings for our associated exhibit was a collaborative effort equally involving L. Brown, P. Johnsgard, A. Johnson, and J. Kren. It could not have been done without the total effort and support of many others, including Dr. Stephen Johnson, who printed nearly all the photographic images and also loaned many important items of Darwiniana. During June 2005, four of us spent eleven days travelling throughout the Galapagos Archipelago via a commercial yacht. We traveled 640 nautical miles, making landfalls at twelve islands-including all four of those visited by Darwin, sometimes landing on the same beaches he visited-and took sixteen hikes in search of plants and animals. We photographed fifty-four bird species, eleven reptiles, and five native mammals. We also photographed about fifty plant species, including many of those that were first collected by Darwin and subsequently described as new species or genera. Images were later drawn, painted, or photographed in order to illustrate comparable evolutionary phenomena and processes occurring on the Great Plains and to point out that evolution is a process that can be observed in our own back yards as well as in such exotic locations as the Galapagos Islands. Paul A. Johnsgard http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/biosciornithology/46 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/biosciornithology/46 Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:24:15 PST The rationale for this book has its origins in Terry Root's 1988 Atlas of North American Wintering Birds, which provided a baseline landmark for evaluating the nationwide winter distributions of North American birds, using data from the National Audubon Society's annual Christmas Bird Counts birds from 1962-63 through 1971-72. Tom Shane and I speculated that an updated analysis might shed light on the possible effects of more recent climatic warming trends on bird migration and wintering patterns in the Great Plains, a region known for its severe winters and also one of our continent's important migratory pathways and wintering regions. As life-long residents of the Great Plains, we have both lived long enough to have witnessed some of these changes in avian migrations and wintering patterns personally. Johnsgard tested these speculations by doing some sample species analyses during the spring of 2008, after which it appeared that a complete survey of Great Plains winter birds would be worthwhile, based on Christmas Bird Count data. Since the 1970's there have been marked changes in avian habitats and regional winter climate patterns, and substantial changes in at least some Great Plains winter bird distributions and populations. In light of these changes it was decided that a survey of Great Plains winter bird populations over the past four decades might prove interesting, using Christmas Bird Count data mostly accrued since the time of Root's landmark study, but using her results as a basis for temporal comparisons. <small> Mozilla Firefox users: There is a known bug in the Firefox PDF plug-in (which opens PDFs within the browser window) that will crash if a file exceeds its buffer size. It will tell you "The file is damaged and cannot be repaired" (which is not true). There are 3 remedies: 1. Right-click and download the PDF outside the browser (i.e., "Save link as ...") 2. Change your Firefox settings to open PDFs with regular Adobe Reader (or Acrobat) instead of the plug-in version. This is reached under Tools > Options > Applications. PDF files will then open in a separate Adobe Reader (or Acrobat) window, not inside the browser window. 3. Download the file with Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, etc.</small> Paul A. Johnsgard http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/biosciornithology/45 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/biosciornithology/45 Tue, 09 Dec 2008 11:18:23 PST Time proceeds inexorably onward, and it has been 17 years since the first edition of Crane Music was published. During that time more than a billion people have been added to the earth's roles, and global warming has increasingly been recognized as a real tlu:oat to our planet's future. Although during that period a small percentage of Americans have become very rich through advances in technology, expanding markets and globalization, wildlife in general has suffered. Continuing population growth and associated economic and ecological pressures have resulted in greatly increased deforestation, wetland drainage, and destruction of natural habitats. Additionally, global climate changes are bringing on unforeseen massive ecological changes that will have serious effects on crane populations, especially in arctic and alpine regions (Harris, 2008). Downward population trends in wildlife that are associated with these factors are especially apparent among native grassland and wetland-dependent birds; nearly all of North America's grassland-adapted birds are now in serious continental decline, and probably much the same is true elsewhere in the world. Most of the world's cranes are also to a large degree dependent on grasslands and wetlands; those that are generally the rarest and most in danger of extinction are the ones most strongly dependent on extensive wetlands. The whooping, Siberian, white-naped, wattled and Japanese (red-crowned) cranes are all strongly wetland-dependent for breeding, and are now among the world's rarest and most endangered species. On the other hand, some relatively herbivorous and terrestrial species such as the sandhill, Eurasian, demoiselle and blue cranes have learned to take advantage of agricultural technology by incorporating into their diets of native plants various cultivated grains, such as com and wheat in Europe and rice in Asia. As a result these species have exhibited local, regional or even national population increases. Such foraging practices have often brought cranes into conflict with agricultural interests, resulting in economic conflicts and sometime draconian control measures. An overview of the current status of the world's cranes is perhaps in order, to bring up to date the accounts given earlier in Crane Music, which was written nearly 20 years ago. Includes: Summary of the Cranes of the World and Their Status The Sandhill Crane The Whooping Crane Supplemental References and Bibliographic Notes Paul A. Johnsgard http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/biosciornithology/44 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/biosciornithology/44 Tue, 09 Dec 2008 10:56:57 PST The year 2009 marked the 110th anniversary of the first colored reproduction of a Fuertes painting; a watercolor of two seaside sparrows published in The Auk, when Fuertes was about 25 years old. Although Fuertes' life spanned little more than a half-century, and most living ornithologists were born after his tragic 1927 death, his influence on natural history art has not lessened. This manuscript is a testimony to his enduring artistic legacy. I first looked in awe at the original set of Fuertes paintings in the summer of 1995, during a visit to the Field Museum in conjunction with my research on North American hummingbirds and avian brood parasites. Like many other lovers of fine bird art, I had marveled at the Field Museum's 1932 album of Abyssinian plates, but the sight of all the additional, and especially the original, images was overwhelming. I inquired at the time about plans for possible publication of the entire collection, and was told that this was under consideration. Next, I was shown the Museum's set of baby bird portraits by George Sutton, and I immediately broached the possibility of publishing these in book form. That query met with favorable response from Benjamin W. Williams, Special Collections Librarian. This project flourished and during the spring of 1998 resulted in the publication of Baby Bird Portraits by George Miksch Sutton: Watercolors in the Field Museum. As soon as this book appeared I began wistfully thinking again of the Fuertes plates. Then, in the summer of 1998 I made a formal suggestion to Mr. Williams that we consider producing a book containing all the bird paintings and their associated pencil sketches, with the text by me, and the hope that perhaps publication and descriptions of the mammal plates could be taken up by someone more qualified than I. I followed this up in September with a proposed outline for the book, and some preliminary text. I also visited the Field Museum during November, 1998, to examine the paintings and drawings closely, measure them, and discuss possible publication plans. At that time Mr. Williams and I agreed that the mammal plates needed inclusion, since there were too few to warrant a separate publication. I reviewed all the Fuertes drawings and watercolors, and photographed them for personal reference. I also selected out some preliminary pencil sketches and anatomical studies, and a few small watercolors of plant material that seemed too incomplete and data-deficient to warrant inclusion. The text length for each species description is directly related to the number of plates done by Fuertes (roughly 300 word per plate). One problem in dealing with these plates is the fact that many of the English vernacular names, as well as the Latin names, associated with the species Fuertes illustrated have undergone changes since 1926, and produced to some problems in identification. There were also a few cases of inaccurate identification of the species illustrated. Thus, two appendices have been provided, respectively organized by original Latin names and by original vernacular names, to try deal with these confusing anomalies between my text and the names shown on the plates themselves or used in various publications. Avian taxonomy in this book follows Fry, Keith & Urban (1982-2004). Mammal taxonomy follows Kingdom (1997). There seems to be little agreement as to the proper spelling of Ethiopian place names, and I have modified some of those that were used by Fuertes and Osgood (1936) to conform with currently used spellings. This review could not have been written without the complete support of the Field Museum of Natural History, and especially its Special Collections Librarian, Benjamin Williams. After Mr. Williams left the Museum, the manuscript lay fallow for several years and I directed my attention toward other projects. Then, in May of 2008, Elizabeth Babcock encountered a copy of my manuscript among older Museum files. She soon contacted me, and brought the project back to my attention. Later I contacted Dr. Paul Royster, Scholarly Communication director. University of Nebraska-Lincoln, about making the manuscript available on-line through the University's digital library (http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/). In preparing this book I have received assistance from several people. Ms. Linda Brown helped in the indexing and photographing of the plates, and provided a great deal of constructive advice and encouragement on my text. Advice on the identification of the unidentified insect painted by Fuertes was offered by Dr. Brett Ratcliffe of the Nebraska State Museum. Paul A. Johnsgard http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/biosciornithology/43 http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/biosciornithology/43 Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:34:05 PST Data are presented on nearly 18,000 bird-captures involving 125 species banded between 1992 and 2005 at two Platte Valley study areas in central and western Nebraska. Weight data for more than 1 1,500 individuals of 74 species are summarized by age, sex and banding site, including several species having larger samples than in any previously published reports. Breeding evidence was obtained for 67 species in one or both locations, and 108 of the total 125 species banded were migrants, 71 percent of which were Neotropical migrants. The largest banding totals were obtained at Cedar Point Biological Station, in Keith County, but large numbers were also obtained at sites in Dawson County, about 100 miles to the east. Hybrids of four sympatric species-pairs (Lazuli & Indigo Bunting, Black-headed & Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Spotted & Eastern Towhees, Bullock's & Baltimore Oriole) were documented at these locations. William C. Scharf