First for the site Lincoln's Sparrow!!!

Captain Sam's 
We had another pretty good day out at Captain Sam's with 73 new birds and 24 recaptures of 17 species. Gray Catbirds made up most of the birds again while Common Yellowthroats came in second. We had two first-of-the season, and one of those was a first ever at KIBS! One of the first-of-the-season's was a Song Sparrow, which we will start to catch more of as they move in for the winter. The first ever banded for the site was a Lincoln's Sparrow! This species is uncommon and very difficult to find in the East so it was a surprise and very exciting to find it in one of our nets! This is also a great find for the state of South Carolina! We are looking forward to the cooler weather this weekend and the potential for good bird movement and high bird numbers.

Left: Lincoln's Sparrow (hatch-year, unknown sex). Right: Song Sparrow (hatch-year, unknown sex)
Photo by Casey Weissburg

Lincoln's vs. Song Sparrow: Sometimes Lincoln's and Song Sparrows can be misidentified since they look very similar. There are a few distinct features that can help with separating these two species when identifying them in the field. One is size. Lincoln's Sparrows are smaller than Song Sparrows. They also have more distinct, narrow streaks on the breast and a more distinct, buffy eye ring compared to Song Sparrows. Their belly is also white without streaks whereas Song Sparrows have some buffy streaking on the belly.

-Michael

Little Bear
Today at Little Bear things were slower when compared with our busy day yesterday, we banded 87 new individuals and recaptured 7 of 17 species. A few more birds weren't the only thing missed at Little Bear today, we had a beautiful, clear, windless day, which was great for our nets. Unfortunately no breeze meant nothing to help keep the bugs away and it got very buggy at the banding table. Despite the bugs we did get several nice birds in the nets, including a new species for this site - Yellow-rumped Warblers! Along with the Yellow-rumpeds we banded a nice variety of migrant and resident bird species, as expected the majority of the catch was made up of Gray Catbirds. Our highlight of the day had to be during one of the mid-morning net rounds when we caught 3 Common Ground Doves. All three were birds were after-hatch year males and were pretty much right next to each other in the net.

-Nancy

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Common Ground-Dove	-	-	3	-
Yellow-billed Cuckoo	1	-	-	-
White-eyed Vireo	2	1	-	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	-	1	-
House Wren	2	-	2	-
Carolina Wren	-	-	1	-
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	1	-	-	-
Swainson's Thrush	4	-	4	-
Gray Catbird	28	17	44	5
Ovenbird	-	-	1	-
Northern Waterthrush	-	-	5	1
Common Yellowthroat	13	1	10	-
American Redstart	2	-	3	-
Northern Parula	1	-	2	-
Blackpoll Warbler	1	-	-	-
Palm Warbler (Western)	7	-	2	-
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)	-	-	2	-
Song Sparrow	1	-	-	-
Lincoln's Sparrow	1	-	-	-
Northern Cardinal	2	3	1	-
Indigo Bunting	5	-	-	-
Painted Bunting	-	2	-	1

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	73	87	160
# of Recaptures	24	7	31
# of Species	17	17	22
Effort (net-hours)	130.0	75.0	205.0
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	74.6	125.3	93.7
Nets	25	15	40

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