1980 R.L. Munne Hermiet Thrush Hastings Reservation 29 Nov Walked up to the Arnold with Laurie Drinkwater today, stopping at the cabin to see what's been going on at the spring. It has been quite dry all fall, with essentially no rain. High overcast at about 1300 hrs. I was surprised to see ~10 Hermit Thrushes congregating about, drinking! Interesting, since this (1) suggests a method to catch and band, and (2) leads to questions about winter spacing. Presumably, they are territorial, and spring observation does not reject this, since Pam had lots of separate Brown Towhees at the spring. Also drinking at the spring were many Golden-crowned Sparrows, J B Towhee. Some aggression seen among the Hermit Thrushes, and I saw as many as 6 gathering around the water tray at one time. 15 Dec First big day of actually trying to work on these guys, Thanks to Dave Winkler & Suzanne Morse, we've set-up + ran some mist nets at the 2 water troughs along S Hill. See reverse for net-set-up. Believe it or not, 12 HT's captured + color banded (with stolen birds from Pam). Best success came right at dusk. Inspection of shit looked like birds have been eating Madrone berries. Aging -- According to the banding manual, 1st yr birds should have "buffy shaft streaks" on 2o' coverts & tertials. We found no birds like this, but about half had buffy tips to those feathers, a characteristic the banding manual said was unreliable. Still,