1979 Walter D. Koenig Melanerpes formicivorus Gazebo (19 July) response to a Barn Owl in the area. After some fuss one of them did roost in the nest hole while the other flew down by me toward the former roost area. 20 July 500. The ambush went successfully, netting me the unbanded ♂, as I expected. (The ambush was done at the nest hole). He was banded and bled, and is now ♂516. Ron watched here later on and cleared up the mystery of the 3rd bird: he's another unbanded ♂! This will clearly call for some reorganizing in this group. Plus it means that there is work yet to be done here! 24 July Having found a hole in a tree down the road slightly from the nest tree where birds were roosting, I ambushed this morning. I'd seen 2 birds go in but when the time came I ended up with 3- the ♂ I caught on 20 July plus 2 (count them: 1,2) unbanded ♂. Both these birds were adults, I think. Both were also bled and banded as ♂517 and ♂518. This new plethora of unbanded ♂ calls into question what in fact has gone on here since I first caught the birds late last winter. The 2 major options are ① the unbanded ♂ remaining from my ambushes persists, is one of the 3 ♂ I've just banded, and at some point probably prior to the nest was joined by 2 new, unbanded ♂; ② ♂480 and the unbanded ♂ from last winter disappeared and were replaced, again prior to the breeding season, by a set of 3 new ♂. My preference here is for the latter scenario; of course, with no way to prove things one way or the other I will ostensibly follow the more conservative (but less likely) route ① in my banding records. Though no decent observations of the ♂ had been made