Thursday, October 30, 2014

Returning Sharp-shinned Hawk

Slow day with only 17 new birds and 11 recaptures of 7 different species.  I was kind of expecting more birds today because of the cold front that moved through early this morning but the radar indicated most of the bird activity was to our west in Tennessee and Georgia.  Another cold front is approaching from the west which will bring with it much colder temperatures for the weekend.  Unfortunately for us, the winds for Saturday and Sunday are predicted to be 25-40 mph.

All of the Sharp-shinned Hawks that we have captured this season have been juveniles.  So when I removed an adult from the net this morning and saw that it was already wearing a band, I got excited. I recognized the prefix number and had a hunch that is was one that we had banded in previous years. I looked up the number when I got back to the office this afternoon and found that it was banded last year on 10/29/13.  Pretty good timing . . .  only one day later than last year!    

NEW BIRDS
1 Sharp-shinned Hawk
1 Orange-crowned Warbler
2 Common Yellowthroat
1 Black-throated Blue Warbler
9 Yellow-rumped Warbler
3 Swamp Sparrow

RECAPTURES
1 Sharp-shinned Hawk
5 Gray Catbird
4 Common Yellowthroat
1 Swamp Sparrow

BANDING STATS
# of New Birds:  17
# of Recaptures:  11
# of Species:  7
Effort:  120.7 net-hours
Capture Rate:  23.2 birds/100 net-hours
# of Nets:  23

BANDING STAFF
Aaron Given
Matt Zak
William Oakley
Libby Natola
Mattie VandenBoom