Magnolia Impossible

Captain Sam's
We had a slow and humid morning today out at the "Spit". We banded 27 new birds and recaptured 10 of 8 species. The majority of birds banded were Gray Catbirds with 19 banded this morning. Our highlight bird was a hatch year Magnolia Warbler.

Magnolia Warblers are beautiful little birds that are notorious for being difficult to determine an individual's sex in the Fall for hatch year birds as well as for determining age and sex in the Spring for all birds. We're advised in our banding identification guide that with hatch year birds less than 5% should be sexed and since they can be difficult we will normally say our hatch year birds are of an unknown sex.

In the bird we caught today there are a few criteria that suggest this is probably a female bird. First, the green feathers on the back didn't have dusky or black centers and the streaking down the bird's flank was thin and indistinct. The amount of white in the tail is also considered an important plumage trait to sex Magnolia's, the white in the tail of the bird from today had a small amount of white on R2 (the most inside rect that will get white on it) and the amount of white reduces as it moves from the outer rects to the inner one. Males usually will get a very distinct white patch that is continuous and doesn't reduce as it moves to the inside rects.

For comparison, we've attached some pictures of an after hatch year male caught and banded last year, as well as a picture of a male Magnolia's tail.

-Nancy

Magnolia Warbler (Hatch year, unknown probable female)

Magnolia Warbler (hatch year, unknown probable female)

Male Magnolia Warbler, you can see the distinct streaking down the flank and black centers in the feather on the back

Male Magnolia Warbler tail, the amount of white remains continuous in male tail feathers whereas it gets much smaller in female Magnolias as it moves to the inside retrices

Little Bear
Today was relatively productive out at Little Bear, we caught 44 new birds and 9 recaptures for a total of 11 species. The species diversity was quite low with those numbers, we caught 20 Gray Catbirds and 18 Common Yellowthroats. The heat was quite brutal today and with the standing water left behind from the tides the past few days the humidity wasn't pleasant either. We are ready for this next cold front to change that along with bringing in some more diversity in our captures!

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Common Ground-dove	-	-	1	-
White-eyed Vireo	-	1	-	1
Carolina Chickadee	1	-	-	-
House Wren	-	-	1	-
Carolina Wren	-	-	-	1
Swainson's Thrush	-	-	-	1
Gray Catbird	19	1	20	1
Magnolia Warbler	1	-	-	-
American Redstart	-	1	-	-
Northern Waterthrush	-	-	1	-
Eastern Towhee	-	-	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	3	4	18	5
Northern Cardinal	1	2	1	-
Painted Bunting	2	1	1	-

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	27	44	71
# of Recaptures	10	9	19
# of Species	8	11	14
Effort (net-hours)	122.5	64.5	187
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	30.2	82.2	48.1
Nets	25	15	40

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Mattie VandenBoom (CS)
Chris Snook (LB)
Nancy Raginski (CS)
Sean McElaney (LB)
Casey Weissburg (CS)
Micheal Gamble (CS)
Ryan Donnelly (LB)

FOS: Blue Jay, Blue Grosbeak and Scarlet Tanager!

Captain Sam's 
Although numbers remained fairly low at Captain Sam's today, with just 40 new birds and 12 recaptures of 16 species, it was quite an exciting today, with three first-of-season species and the wonderful Master Naturalists class joining us for a surprisingly diverse day of banding in extremely high tides. The firsts were not one but two Blue Jays, a beautiful hatch-year female Scarlet Tanager, and a Blue Grosbeak. With the high tides peaking today, at mid-thigh heights no less, we were not expecting so much activity and diversity but were happy to share it with a class of very interested naturalists.

-Casey

Scarlet Tanager (hatch-year, female) 

Blue Grosbeak (Hatch-year, sex unknown)

Blue Jay (hatch year, sex unknown)

Little Bear 

We did a little better today at Little Bear with 44 new birds and 7 recaptures, comprised of 12 species.  Gray Catbirds and Common Yellowthroats were tied for the most numerous species with 15 each.  Over the next few weeks Common Yellowthroats will begin to taper off as Gray Catbirds begin to reach their season peak.  A front is slowly making its way across the country and should be arriving in our area around Thursday, so we may have a big day in the near future.

-Mattie

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
White-eyed Vireo	-	1	1	2
Red-eyed Vireo	1	2	-	-
Blue Jay	1	1	-	-
Carolina Wren	-	-	-	1
Gray Catbird	14	2	15	-
Brown Thrasher	1	-	-	-
Veery	3	-	-	-
Northern Waterthrush	1	-	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	12	2	15	2
American Redstart	2	-	-	-
Yellow Warbler	-	-	1	-
Palm Warbler (Western)	1	-	2	-
Prairie Warbler	1	-	1	-
Yellow-breasted Chat	-	1	-	-
Eastern Towhee	-	-	1	-
Scarlet Tanager	1	-	-	-
Northern Cardinal	-	2	3	1
Blue Grosbeak	1	-	-	-
Indigo Bunting	-	-	1	-
Painted Bunting	1	1	3	1

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	40	44	84
# of Recaptures	12	7	19
# of Species	16	12	20
Effort (net-hours)	132.5	75.0	207.5
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	39.2	68.0	107.2
Nets	25	15	40

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Mattie VandenBoom (LB)
Nancy Raginski (LB)
Sean McElaney (CS)
Casey Weissburg (CS)
Micheal Gamble (LB)
Ryan Donnelly (CS)

High tides, low capture rates

Captain Sam's
Try as we might this morning to avoid being inundated with water, we all finally had to submit to the tide and let our boots fill with water. With the tide as high as it has been over the past two days we have had more fish in our net lanes than birds! Today we had a low capture rate with only 18 new birds captured along with 13 recaptures for a total of 15 species. Our highlight for the day was our first of season Tennessee Warbler. We are all ready for these tides to go down and more birds to push through.

-Sean

Ryan walking on one of our flooded paths

Little Bear
Today was slow with 29 new birds and 6 recaptures of 12 species.The Yellow-breasted Chat, Veery and the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher were nice birds,but the most exciting bird was a recaptured hatch-year Painted Bunting. This individual was originally banded by Aaron at the Captain Sam's site on the 28th August this year and represents the first inter-site recapture on Kiawah. The post-breeding dispersal of hatch-year birds does not always follow the migration direction as demonstrated by this individual.
 
Over the past few days, with the rain, the full moon tides and northerly winds, we have seen our net lanes change from dry  to wet with increasing amounts of water in them. Nets are adjusted to protect the birds from the water. Tides are governed by the moon's gravity so that when the moon is full higher than normal tides occur. The recent "supermoon" has increased the tidal height more than predicted and combined with the north easterly winds recently have increased tidal heights significantly, about 12 inches. This has caused the flooding of our net lanes to knee deep in places. 

We will have to see what tomorrow's tide will bring, as it is the highest in this cycle.

- Chris

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Red-eyed Vireo	-	1	1	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	1	1	-
House Wren	1	-	-	-
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher	1	-	1	-
Veery	1	-	1	-
Gray Catbird	5	1	7	1
Northern Mockingbird	-	1	-	-
Brown Thrasher	2	-	-	-
Tennesse Warbler	1	-	-	-
Yellow Warbler	-	-	1	-
Palm Warbler (Western)	-	-	6	-
Black-and-white Warbler	1	-	-	-
American Redstart	2	1	-	-
Ovenbird	-	1	-	-
Northern Waterthrush	-	-	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	3	5	9	1
Yellow-breasted Chat	-	-	1	-
Northern Cardinal	-	2	-	2
Painted Bunting	1	-	-	2

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	18	29	47
# of Recaptures	13	6	19
# of Species	15	12	18
Effort (net-hours)	114.5	70.0	184.5
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	15.72	50.0	35.77
Nets	25	14	39

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Mattie VandenBoom (LB)
Chris Snook (LB)
Nancy Raginski (CS)
Sean McElaney (CS)
Michael Gamble (LB)
Ryan Donnelly (CS)

FOS: Cooper's Hawk, Nashville Warbler, Saltmarsh Sparrow, and Marsh Wren!!

Captain Sam's
It was a slow day at the "Spit" with only 17 new birds and 14 recaptures of 13 different species. Large tides associated with the full moon cycle are flooding much of the banding station with several inches of water - up to 12" in some areas!  This makes navigating the banding trails a much slower process.  I don't think the tides had anything to do with the lack of birds captured today.  I believe that many birds left last night taking advantage of the "local" north wind.  Rain or other unfavorable conditions several hundred miles north of here slowed migration, so we did not have many new birds to replace the ones that left.

Even though it was slow, it was an interesting day as we banded the 2nd ever Cooper's Hawk during fall migration at KIBS (the first one was banded last fall).  The Coop, a juvenile male, flew into the net just as Casey had finished removing a Northern Cardinal.  I heard her yell, "HAWK" from one net over and rushed over to help.  It took both of us to finally secure the powerful raptor and get it into a safe hold (for us and the bird).  Not to be completely overshadowed by the Cooper's Hawk account, we also had a first-of-the-season Nashville Warbler!

Cooper's Hawk (hatch-year, male)

Nashville Warbler (hatch-year, male)

Little Bear
It was the first day running the four new net lanes out at Little Bear and they seemed to have about the same capture rate as the others. One interesting find was the new nets caught 8 out of the 12 recaptures, which means the resident species we banded previously moved to another area of the station due to their familiarity of the location of our original net lanes. Along with the 12 recaptures, we banded 28 new birds of 14 species. It was a tie between the Gray Catbird and Common Yellowthroat for numbers caught (both with 10), so it looks like more Gray Catbirds are beginning to migrate through the station. We also had 2 first-of the-seasons with a Marsh Wren and a Saltmarsh Sparrow! We had a massive tide that inundated net lanes 5-10, which explains why these species were pushed into our site from the marsh. The Saltmarsh Sparrow is one species of marsh sparrow Aaron bands here on Kiawah in the winter, so it was exciting to know they are starting to show up again. We are expecting more extremely high tides over the next few days so we will see what that pushes in!

-Michael

Saltmarsh Sparrow (hatch-year, sex unknown)

Marsh Wren (hatch-year, sex unknown)
Photos by Mattie VandenBoom

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Cooper's Hawk	1	-	-	-
White-eyed Vireo	-	1	-	2
Red-eyed Vireo	-	1	1	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	-	-	1
House Wren	-	-	1	-
Marsh Wren	-	-	1	-
Carolina Wren	-	1	-	2
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher	-	-	1	-
Gray Catbird	2	2	10	-
Brown Thrasher	1	1	-	-
Worm-eating Warbler	-	1	-	-
Nashville Warbler	1	-	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	8	3	10	1
American Redstart	-	-	1	2
Yellow Warbler	2	-	-	-
Palm Warbler (Western)	1	-	-	-
Saltmarsh Sparrow	-	-	1	-
Northern Cardinal	-	2	-	1
Indigo Bunting	-	-	1	-
Painted Bunting	1	2	1	2

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	17	28	45
# of Recaptures	14	12	26
# of Species	13	14	20
Effort (net-hours)	132.5	70.0	202.5
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	23.4	57.1	35.1
Nets	25	14	39

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Mattie VandenBoom (LB)
Chris Snook (LB)
Nancy Raginski (CS)
Sean McElaney (CS)
Casey Weissburg (CS)
Michael Gamble (LB)
Ryan Donnelly (CS)

FOS: Swainson's Thrush

Captain Sam's

We opened nets to a very foggy banding site this morning, as well as a substantial amount of standing water due to the high tide and Thursday night's storm. Despite the fog and water, we were had a very busy first net round and caught 28 birds. Overall our day was steady with 56 new individuals banded and 14 recaptured of 19 species. Common Yellowthroats were, as usual, the majority of birds caught, with 23 banded. We had decent warbler diversity with 8 different species between our banded and recaptured birds, we also heard at least one Blackpoll warbler. South Carolina is approximately half way between their wintering grounds and where they start their migration in North-Eastern North America, we expect them to hang around Kiawah for a couple more days to replenish their fat stores as well as wait for more favorable weather conditions before continuing their migration. We also caught two hatch year Ruby-throated Hummingbirds today, a male and a female.

We're expecting North winds over night and hope this means we'll see some new migrant species at Captain Sam's.

-Nancy

Little Bear

 With an overcast morning and no new cold fronts pushing through, we were expecting a slow down from the previous mornings we have recently had. The standing water, remaining from Thursday night's storm, in the net lanes doesn't deter the birds from feeding (nets are raised higher so that there is a bigger gap below the nets  than normal). Although the morning's catch was slow it was steady finally amounting to 36 new birds and 6 recaptures of 13 species.

The highlight of the morning was the First of the Season Swainson's Thrush. Although we have been catching Veery's for a while now, Swainson's Thrushes seem, to me, to herald the closing of the Fall and the looming of winter. The other species of interest was the Worm-eating Warbler which we have caught a few this year.

During the quite periods we erected 4 new nets in an area that we haven't explored until yesterday afternoon. We are looking forward to the results tomorrow when we start using these new net lanes.

Swainson's Thrush - Hatch Year

- Chris

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Traill's Flycatcher	1	-	-	-
Eastern Wood Pewee	1	-	-	-
White-eyed Vireo	-	-	-	2
Red-eyed Vireo	2	2	4	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	1	-	-
Carolina Wren	-	1	-	-
House Wren	1	-	-	-
Swainson's Thrush	-	-	1	-
Gray Catbird	9	1	3	-
Northern Mockingbird	1	-	-	-
Ovenbird	1	-	-	-
Worm-eating Warbler	-	1	1	-
Black and White Warbler	-	1	2	-
Common Yellowthroat	23	3	15	4
American Redstart	6	2	4	-
Yellow Warbler	-	-	1	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	-	-	1	-
Palm Warbler (Western)	5	-	1	-
Prairie Warbler	1	-	1	-
Yellow-breasted Chat	2	-	-	-
Northern Cardinal	2	-	2	-
Painted Bunting	1	2	-	-

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	56	36	92
# of Recaptures	14	6	20
# of Species	18	13	22
Effort (net-hours)	132.5	50.0	182.2
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	52.83	82.0	61.5
Nets	25	10	35

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Mattie VandenBoom (LB)
Chris Snook (LB)
Nancy Raginski (CS)
Casey Weissburg (CS)
Micheal Gamble (LB)
Ryan Donnelly (CS)

FOS: Blackpoll Warbler and Yellow-billed Cuckoo

Captain Sam's
Strong storms last night and wind out of the south started us at Captain Sam's not expecting much in the way of migrants, but we had quite an exciting morning. Although numbers remained fairly low, with 38 new birds and a surprising 19 recaptures, of a total of 14 species, we had a new House Wren, our biggest Gray Catbird day with 7 new individuals, and, most exciting of all: 3 Blackpoll Warblers!

These large warblers have one of the most extraordinary fall migrations, not only crossing an incredible distance averaging 2,500 km, but marathoning it over the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean, from the northeastern United States to northern South America! This is one of the longest distance nonstop overwater flights ever recorded for a migratory songbird. Wind and weather permitting, that is a potential nonstop 72-88 hour odyssey, for an animal that can fit in the palm of your hand!

But for species like the Blackpoll that migrate overwater, wind and weather is our only chance to catch them, here in the Southeast; because of this, we catch an average of only 1-3 per season. Luckily, the intense storms last night brought them right in to our banding site! These beautiful warblers still have a long way to go before they reach their wintering grounds, though. Good luck, ladies!

-Casey

Our first Blackpoll Warbler of the season (AHY, female) 

Our third Blackpoll Warbler (AHY, female)
Photos by Casey Weissburg

Little Bear 

It was a surprisingly good morning at Little Bear with 53 new birds and 8 recaptures, comprised of 19 species.  The overnight radar did not look too promising, with strong storms stretching from Georgia to Virginia.  Our good day was likely a result of birds that came in yesterday or the day before that were forced to stay due to the storms. 

We were very excited to have not one but two first of the season today.  We had our first Blackpoll Warbler.  This individual may have been attempting its incredible transoceanic migration but was pushed inland because of the storms.  We also had our first Yellow-billed Cuckoo of the season.  Cuckoos are very secretive birds and are more often heard than seen so it is always exciting when one is captured during banding.   

-Mattie

Yellow-billed Cuckoo (hatch-year)

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Yellow-billed Cuckoo	-	-	1	-
White-eyed Vireo	1	2	1	-
Red-eyed Vireo	3	2	5	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	-	-	2
House Wren	1	1	1	-
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher	1	-	-	-
Veery	-	-	1	-
Gray Catbird	7	2	6	-
Worm-eating Warbler	1	-	-	-
Ovenbird	-	-	1	1
Northern Waterthrush	-	-	1	-
Black-and-white Warbler	-	1	-	1
Common Yellowthroat	17	4	24	3
American Redstart	3	2	3	-
Yellow Warbler	-	-	2	-
Blackpoll Warbler	3	-	1	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	-	-	1	-
Palm Warbler (Western)	-	-	1	-
Prairie Warbler	-	1	2	-
Northern Cardinal	-	1	1	-
Painted Bunting	-	3	1	1
House Finch	1	-	-	-

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	38	53	91
# of Recaptures	19	8	27
# of Species	14	19	22
Effort (net-hours)	140.0	50.0	190.0
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	40.7	122.0	62.1
Nets	25	10	35

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Mattie VandenBoom (LB)
Chris Snook (LB)
Nancy Raginski (CS)
Sean McElaney (CS)
Casey Weissburg (CS)
Michael Gamble (LB)

FOS: Acadian Flycatcher

CAPTAIN SAM'S
It was a rain-shortened day out at Captain Sam's.  We had to close down the nets around 9:00am due to a light but steady rain.  I believe we would have been in for a really good day of banding if we could have kept the nets open longer.  We still banded 66 new birds and had 7 recaptures of 17 different species in about a 2.5 hour period.  Highlights today included two Cape May Warblers (1 adult male and 1 adult female) and our first-of-the-season (for Captain Sam's) Indigo Bunting.

-Aaron

LITTLE BEAR
It was an overcast and windier day out at Little Bear this morning compared to yesterday, but not windy enough to cause us to close any nets. It did begin to rain a couple hours after opening and picked up around 9:30, causing us to close for the day. Even with having the nets open for a short period of time, we still had a pretty good number of birds! We banded 47 new birds and had 7 recaptures of 13 species. We also caught a first-of-the season Acadian Flycatcher! After analyzing all the measurements we came to the conclusion it was an Acadian due to its grey legs and large bill length and width. Yellow-bellied Flycatchers also have grey legs but the length and width of the bill was too large for a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher but in the range of the Acadian Flycatcher. Little Bear seems to be a great place for flycatchers, with already 5 flycatcher species caught this season!

-Michael

Acadian Flycatcher (hatch-year, sex unknown)
Photo by Mattie VandenBoom

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Acadian Flycatcher	-	-	1	-
White-eyed Vireo	-	1	1	1
Red-eyed Vireo	1	-	-	1
Carolina Chickadee	-	1	-	-
Carolina Wren	-	1	-	1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher	-	-	1	-
Gray Catbird	4	-	1	-
Northern Mockingbird	1	-	-	1
Ovenbird	1	1	1	-
Northern Waterthrush	5	-	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	36	-	30	2
American Redstart	8	-	5	-
Cape May Warbler	2	-	-	-
Yellow Warbler	3	-	1	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	1	-	-	-
Palm Warbler (Western)	1	-	4	-
Prairie Warbler	1	-	2	-
Indigo Bunting	1	-	-	-
Painted Bunting	-	2	-	-

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	65	47	112
# of Recaptures	6	6	12
# of Species	17	13	19
Effort (net-hours)	54.25	33	87.25
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	130.9	160.6	142.1
Nets	22	10	32

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Mattie VandenBoom (LB)
Chris Snook (LB)
Nancy Raginski (CS)
Sean McElaney (CS)
Casey Weissburg (CS)
Micheal Gamble (LB)
Ryan Donnelly (CS)

Wind and Common Yellowthroats

Captain Sam's

Despite having to close a few nets due to strong winds this morning we had a steady capture rate that led to an overall productive day. We captured 69 new birds and 11 recaptures for a total of 15 species for the day. One interesting bird that we had today was a Northern Waterthrush that presented us with quite an extreme example of how we are able to age them. Whilst looking at many of the brown warblers, Waterthrush, Ovenbirds, Worm-eating Warblers etc. we look for buffy colored tipping in their flight feathers which would indicate a hatch year bird. On the bird pictured below we have a very obvious example of what we are looking for. You can see that the buff color is very contrasting with the dark brown on the rest of the feathers making it easy to age.

-Sean

Northern Waterthrush with buffy tipping on inner tertial feathers

Little Bear
We had an overcast and windy day at Little Bear today, but to make up for the less than ideal conditions we were slightly busier than we've been the past couple of days. We banded 42 new individuals and recaptured 4 of 14 species. More than half of our catch was made up of Common Yellowthroats, with 26 new birds banded. We had our usual suspects show up today as well as a good variety of migrants, including a new Baltimore Oriole. Our highlight of the day was a bit of a puzzle,  a mystery Wood Pewee that needs further investigation.

Tomorrow we're expecting rain and more wind, but are hopeful than rain will hold out until after we're done banding.

-Nancy

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Eastern Wood Pewee	-	-	1	-
Traill's Flycatcher	1	-	-	1
Carolina Chickadee	-	-	2	-
Carolina Wren	-	-	-	2
Prairie Warbler	3	-	-	-
American Redstart	2	1	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	52	2	26	-
Yellow Warbler	1	-	-	-
Black and White Warbler	1	-	1	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	2	-	1	-
Palm Warbler (Western)	1	-	4	-
Red-eyed Vireo	2	-	-	-
Northern Waterthrush	2	-	1	-
Gray Catbird	2	2	1	-
Northern Mockingbird	1	-	-	-
Indigo Bunting	-	-	1	-
Painted Bunting	-	2	-	-
White-eyed Vireo	-	1	1	-
Northern Cardinal	-	2	2	1
Baltimore Oriole	-	-	1	-

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	70	42	112
# of Recaptures	10	4	14
# of Species	15	14	20
Effort (net-hours)	121.2	42.17	163.37
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	66.0	99.6	77.1
Nets	25	8	33

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Chris Snook (LB)
Nancy Raginski (LB)
Sean McElaney (CS)
Casey Weissburg (LB)
Ryan Donnelly (CS)

Weak Cold Front

Captain Sam's

Overnight winds from the North West brought in a small wave of migrants to Captain Sam’s this morning.  We ended our banding session with a total of 88 new birds and 8 recaptures, comprised of 15 species.  A highlight from this morning included a first-of- the-season House Wren. 

Since the start of KIBS back in 2009, over 20,000 birds have been banded as part of the fall monitoring program.  Over the years a total of 115 different species have been banded.  Some of the species have only been encountered once but there are several species that have had over a thousand individuals banded and even one species has had over 5,000 individuals banded.   The top five species are as follows:

1. Common Yellowthroat (5,170)     
2. Yellow-rumped Warbler (3,822)
3. Gray Catbird (2,712)
4. Red-eyed Vireo (842)
5. American Redstart (763)

-Mattie


Little Bear

A relatively disappointingly slow day with 27 new and 9 recaptured birds of 13 species. There were various birds calling and moving around all morning but few in the nets. This may have been due to the increase in wind around 08:30 this morning.

On arrival one of our furled nets (loops closed and netting wrapped around the shelf strings and tied close) had been knocked over by a passing Deer. The net wasn't damaged but this is the third encounter with deer our nets have had and with the least damage.

 The most interesting birds were the Yellow-breasted Chat, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher and a recaptured White-eyed Vireo originally banded on the first day of banding at Little Bear. Although Common Yellowthroats were the most numerous species trapped, it was a nice surprise to catch 5 Yellow Warblers.

- Chris

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (Hatch-year, Unknown sex) by Casey Wiessburg

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Downy Woodpecker	-	1	-	-
Traill's Flycatcher	1	-	-	-
White-eyed Vireo	2	-	1	3
Red-eyed Vireo	4	-	2	1
Carolina Chickadee	-	-	-	2
Carolina Wren	-	1	-	-
House Wren	1	-	-	-
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher	-	-	1	-
Gray Catbird	3	-	1	-
Yellow Warbler	3	-	5	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	2	-	-	-
Prairie Warbler	-	-	1	-
Palm Warbler (Western)	1	-	-	-
Black-and-white Warbler	-	-	1	-
American Redstart	3	-	-	1
Northern Waterthrush	1	-	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	66	2	11	2
Yellow-breasted Chat	-	-	1	-
Northern Cardinal	1	3	2	-
Painted Bunting	-	1	1	-

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	88	27	115
# of Recaptures	8	9	17
# of Species	15	13	20
Effort (net-hours)	127.1	50.0	177.1
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	75.5	72.0	64.9
Nets	25	10	35

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Mattie VandenBoom (CS)
Chris Snook (LB)
Nancy Raginski (LB)
Sean McElaney (CS)
Casey Weissburg (LB)
Micheal Gamble (CS)
Ryan Donnelly (CS)

FOS: House Wren, plus Little Bear's 1st Eastern Screech-owl!

Captain Sam's
This morning held much promise after yesterday's surprise near 100 bird day, but despite a big day yesterday we were closer to where we were on Saturday. We caught 25 new birds and 10 recaptures for a total of 11 species. Our most exciting capture of the day was a very nice looking, after hatch year male, Black-and-white Warbler. We also recaptured an old color banded Painted Bunting. Since it had color bands we can tell that it was banded at least three years ago. It is always great to recapture a bird that has migrated through your site successfully several times, we hope to have her come back to check in again in the years to come!

-Sean

Black-and-white Warbler

Little Bear
Cooler temperatures brought more noticeable bird movement today, although numbers remained low with 24 new birds and 4 recaptures of 14 species. However, the morning started off with some excitement as we found a beautiful hatch year gray phase Eastern Screech-owl in our nets, on the very first net check! This was the first owl captured and banded at Little Bear. Another first-of-season species was a House Wren, the first of the season for both sites! Other notable mentions include the expected increasing number of Gray Catbirds, and two new Baltimore Orioles. For a slow day, we still saw and captured several migrants, and even spotted a Blackburnian Warbler by the banding table in the early morning. If only he would go into a net!

-Casey

House Wren (Hatch year, sex unknown)

Gray phase Eastern Screech-owl (hatch year, sex unknown)
Photos by Casey Weissburg

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Eastern Screech-Owl	-	-	1	-
Traill's Flycatcher	-	-	1	-
White-eyed Vireo	-	1	1	2
Red-eyed Vireo	3	-	3	-
Carolina Chickadee	1	-	-	-
House Wren	-	-	1	-
Carolina Wren	-	1	-	1
Gray Catbird	5	-	4	-
Brown Thrasher	1	-	-	-
Ovenbird	-	1	1	-
Northern Waterthrush	5	-	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	6	3	6	-
Black and White Warbler	1	-	-	-
Yellow Warbler	1	-	2	-
Northern Cardinal	-	-	-	1
Painted Bunting	2	4	1	-
Baltimore Oriole	-	-	2	-

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	25	24	49
# of Recaptures	10	4	14
# of Species	11	14	17
Effort (net-hours)	122.5	45.0	167.5
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	28.6	62.2	37.6
Nets	25	9	34

50 Shades of Common Yellowthroats

CAPTAIN SAM'S

It's amazing what a slight shift in overnight winds can do for moving birds to the coast.  Over the last few days we have experienced fairly strong NE winds during the night.  These winds most likely pushed birds that are migrating along the coast further inland.  Last night, however, the winds were light but had more of a NNW direction.  Winds that have a westerly component to them can move birds to the coast resulting in the increased of numbers of birds that we experienced today.  We banded 88 new birds and had 10 recaptures of 17 different species.

We have been capturing a lot of Common Yellowthroats as of late, but we have only scratched the surface as most have not yer reached us.  Common Yellowthroats are by far the most common bird banded at KIBS with anywhere from 1200-1500 of them banded in a fall.

Hatch-year male Common Yellowthroats are highly variable in the extent of black that they can exhibit in their mask.  The mask on some hatch year males is completely absent while other may have a full mask.  The mask on most hatch-year males, however, is somewhere in between.  The following photo collage shows examples of the variation in the amount of black in the mask of hatch-year male Common Yellowthroats.

-Aaron

   

All of these are hatch-year male Common Yellowthroats

For comparison, the following two photos are of an after hatch-year (adult) male and a hatch-year, sex unknown (probably female).  Note that the after hatch-year male and the hatch-year male (#9 above) look nearly identical.  The age of both of these birds were confirmed by skull ossification.

After hatch-year male Common Yellowthroat

Hatch-year, sex unknown (probable female) Common Yellowthroat

LITTLE BEAR

Despite beautiful weather we had a slow morning at Little Bear today. We banded 25 new individuals and recaptured 2 birds of 9 species. We caught a nice mix of resident and migrant species and saw a slight increase in Gray Catbirds today, with 3 new birds banded. This is a species we expect to see in much larger numbers over the coming weeks. Our highlight birds were a pair of hatch year Black-throated Blue Warblers.

We're expecting a cold front to move through the area on Tuesday of next week, it should bring lots of birds migrating with it and hopefully some new species we haven't seen yet this season.

-Nancy

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Downy Woodpecker	-	1	-	-
White-eyed Vireo	1	1	2	-
Red-eyed Vireo	5	-	2	-
Carolina Wren	-	1	-	1
Gray Catbird	4	-	3	-
Brown Thrasher	2	1	-	-
Ovenbird	-	-	1	-
Northern Waterthrush	2	-	-	-
Prothonotary Warbler	1	-	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	58	2	13	-
American Redstart	1	-	-	-
Magnolia Warbler	1	-	-	-
Yellow Warbler	1	-	-	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	6	-	2	-
Palm Warbler (western)	1	-	-	-
Prairie Warbler	3	-	-	-
Northern Cardinal	-	1	1	1
Painted Bunting	2	2	1	-

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	88	25	113
# of Recaptures	9	2	11
# of Species	17	9	18
Effort (net-hours)	131.25	47.5	179.25
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	73.9	56.8	69.2
Nets	25	10	35

Aging Red-eyed and White-eyed Vireos

Captain Sam's 

It was an average day at Captain Sam’s today with 46 new birds comprised of 10 species and 1 recapture.   As you may have guessed, Common Yellowthroats were the most common species banded today with 34.  It seems we will continue with a similar bird activity pattern for the next few days with things possibly picking up midweek. 

Mixed among the Common Yellowthroats today were our two most common species of vireos, Red-eyed Vireo and White-eyed Vireo.  Most of the birds we band at KIBS are aged based on a molt limit found in the wing but when it comes to these two vireos species, the first thing we look at is eye color.  Interestingly enough, when these species are first hatched out they do not have the eye color that they are named for.  Red-eyed Vireos start off with a dark brown iris and over a period of a couple months will attain the bright red iris that the species is known for.  White-eyed Vireos begin life with a gray brown iris that progressively gets whiter over a period of several months.  The full adult eye color is usually reached during their first winter or late fall, making aging based on eye color only useful during fall migration.  When using eye color to age, as with any other aging technique, it is usually a good idea to look at other characteristics such as skull ossification and molt limits to age with certainty.  This was certainly the case today when we captured a White-eyed Vireo with a white eye.  After studying the bird's plumage, we noticed a couple of things that pointed away from an adult bird.  The outer tails feathers were narrow and tapered, and the primary coverts were faded.  So we checked the bird's skull to see if it was completely ossified, and sure enough, it was not, meaning that this individual was a hatch-year bird (see last photo).            

-Mattie                  

Red-eyed Vireo (top: hatch-year, bottom: after hatch-year)

White-eyed Vireo (top: hatch-year, bottom: after hatch-year)

Hatch-year with white eye similar to an adult.
This bird was probably hatched early in the summer which gave it plenty of time to acquire a white eye by mid-September.  

Little Bear
We had another slow day at Little Bear today, although better than yesterday. We captured 22 new bands and 6 recaptures, of 11 species. About half of our new birds were Common Yellowthroats, but we also had a few other warbler species around today and Little Bear got its first-of-season Gray Catbird! There will be many more to come.

-Casey

Gray Catbird (Hatch-year, sex unknown)
Photo by Casey Weissburg

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
White-eyed Vireo	1	-	-	1
Red-eyed Vireo	1	1	-	1
Gray Catbird	-	-	1	-
Ovenbird	1	-	1	-
Northern Waterthrush	1	-	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	34	-	12	-
American Redstart	1	-	-	1
Yellow Warbler	3	-	1	-
Palm Warbler (western)	1	-	1	-
Prairie Warbler	1	-	1	-
Northern Cardinal	-	-	-	2
Painted Bunting	2	-	4	1

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	46	21	67
# of Recaptures	1	6	7
# of Species	10	11	12
Effort (net-hours)	127.5	50	177.5
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	36.9	42.0	41.7
Nets	25	10	35