And They're Off...

We love Tennessee. It is beautiful and our collaborators there have always gone above and beyond to ensure our success. However, it is admittedly a relief for the crews to head out to sites that don't require driving up and down painfully unmaintained "roads" in the Cumberland Mountains and then climbing up and down those mountains in search of relatively few birds. Cassie, Kate, and Allie are off to the Virginias where support from Kyle Aldinger and Petra Wood made marking birds a breeze in WV last year and where Lesley Bulluck and her crew are already at the VA sites getting a headstart on the geo recovery efforts. Gunnar, Justin, and Jen made the short trip to our KY sites where Blue-winged Warblers are abundant and aggressive and hopefully carrying lots of geos. Kyle, Jacob, and Sean headed west in Tennessee to search out the Blue-wings of Fort Campbell with continued assistance from Dan Moss who already spotted a geomarked bird last week.

From these sites the crews will work their way north through Vermivora breeding country to all the sites marked with thumbtacks in the Google Earth image above.