August-October Update

With only a month left in the 2015 banding season, I figured it was a good time for another full season update.  Between the two banding sites, we have banded almost 6000 birds with over 1050 recaptures of 83 different species.  At Captain Sam's, 4026 new birds have been banded with 747 recaptures of 77 species.  That site has operated for 71 days accruing 8879.9 net-hours, and netting a capture rate of 53.7 birds/100 net-hours.  At Little Bear, 1940 new birds have been banded with 318 recaptures of 64 species.  Little Bear has operated for 43 days accruing 2340.1 net-hours, and netting a capture rate of 99.7 birds/100 net-hours.

Top 10 Species Banded at Captain Sam's
1.  Common Yellowthroat (1264)
2.  Gray Catbird (778)
3.  American Redstart (241)
4.  Red-eyed Vireo (187)
5.  Yellow-rumped Warbler (172)
6.  Painted Bunting (144)
7.  Black-throated Blue Warbler (143)
8.  Prairie Warbler (137)
9.  Northern Waterthrush (101)
10.  Palm Warbler (76)

Top 10 Species Banded at Little Bear
1.  Gray Catbird (401)
2.  Common Yellowthroat (392)
3.  Yellow-rumped Warbler (200)
4.  Painted Bunting (69)
5.  Red-eyed Vireo (68)
6. American Redstart (67)
7.  Northern Cardinal (63)
8. Palm Warbler (53)
9. Prairie Warbler (43)
10.  Northern Waterthrush (39)    

Captain Sam's
We had another good day of banding at the Spit with 104 new birds and 27 recaptures of 20 different species.  Ruby-crowned Kinglets made a strong showing with 13 of them banded.  We have also had a little surge of Painted Buntings the last few days and banded 7 of them today.  Yellow-rumped Warblers made up the bulk of the new birds with 44.  Yellow-rumps will dominate the nets for the rest of the season.
-Aaron

Little Bear
The recent cold front from Friday continues to produce interesting birds. A total of 93 new birds and 9 recaptures gave a total of 102 birds caught of 15 species.

Bird of the morning had to be the adult male Sharp-shinned Hawk. The recent predominance of Gray Catbirds at the site appears to be decreasing with the increase of Yellow-rumped Warblers during this past front. The American Redstart was a late surprise as the previous Redstart banded was on 19th October. Painted Buntings are still coming through  the site with 8 birds caught today. Although these birds breed here, some also overwinter and today's birds are probably just passing through and only time will tell if they stay.

Wintering birds are now increasing in numbers with Yellow-rumped Warblers, Sharp-shinned  Hawk, Song and Swamp Sparrows all increasing at the moment. Once the temperature has a more permanent decrease, as opposed to the temporary drops of the cold fronts, these species should dominate the catch in the coming weeks.

- Chris

Adult male Sharp-shinned Hawk (photo by Michael Gamble)

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Sharp-shinned Hawk	-	-	1	-
Eastern Phoebe	-	-	2	-
House Wren	1	-	2	-
Carolina Wren	-	1	-	-
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	13	-	4	-
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher	-	-	1	-
Gray Catbird	15	15	9	7
Northern Mockingbird	-	1	-	-
Magnolia Warbler	-	-	-	1
Black-throated Blue Warbler	1	-	1	-
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)	44	-	47	-
Palm Warbler (Western)	-	-	1	-
American Redstart	-	-	1	-
Northern Parula	2	-	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	4	-	3	-
Prairie Warbler	-	1	-	-
Song Sparrow	3	1	5	-
Swamp Sparrow	5	1	8	1
Northern Cardinal	1	4	-	-
Painted Bunting	7	-	8	-
Indigo Bunting	1	-	-	-
White-eyed Vireo	1	-	-	-
Blue-headed Vireo	2	-	-	-
Carolina Chickadee	1	-	-	-
Hermit Thrush	2	1	-	-
Orange-crowned Warbler	1	-	-	-

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	104	93	197
# of Recaptures	27	9	36
# of Species	20	15	26
Effort (net-hours)	145.0	84.0	229.0
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	90.3	121.4	101.7
Nets	25	16	41

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 (LB)