FOS: Gray Catbird

Captain Sam's 
We had a pretty good start to the morning, which we were not expecting due to the low migration forecast. We ended the day with 44 new individuals banded and 8 recaptures of 9 species. Common Yellowthroats were again the most prominent, making up 31 of the 44 birds banded. The American Redstart came in second with only 7 individuals. We did have a first of the season Gray Catbird show up in one of our nets. This is no surprise, and we were actually expecting to see some Gray Catbirds migrate through around this time. Now that we banded one today, there will be many more to come soon!

-Michael

Gray Catbird (hatch-year, unknown sex)
Photo by Aaron Given

Little Bear
An overcast start with moderate first net round lead to a slow morning's banding with 16 new and 3 recaptures of 8 species. Throughout the morning we were treated to many calls in the vegetation  to which we expected more birds flying around so the final totals were disappointing.

The surprise of the morning was the first bird of the day - the recapture of the Yellow-bellied Flycatcher from yesterday. It was healthy and had gained 0.2g over its previous day's 8.8g - equivalent to a 180 pound person gaining 4.5 pounds getting ready for its migration.

- Chris

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher	-	-	-	1
Red-eyed Vireo	2	1	3	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	2	-	-
Carolina Wren	-	1	-	-
Gray Catbird	1	-	-	-
Ovenbird	1	1	1	-
Northern Waterthrush	1	-	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	31	-	5	1
American Redstart	7	-	3	-
Palm Warbler (Western)	-	-	1	-
Northern Cardinal	-	-	-	1
Painted Bunting	1	3	3	-

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	44	16	60
# of Recaptures	8	3	11
# of Species	9	8	12
Effort (net-hours)	127.5	50	177.5
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	40.8	38.0	40.0
Nets	25	10	35