Slow days between cold fronts

Captain Sam's
While today was busier than yesterday, we had another slow day at Captain Sam's today. we banded 26 new birds and recaptured 11 of 9 species.

The highlight of the morning came in the last net round as we were preparing to close, our second Blue-headed Vireo of the season. We also saw an increase in Yellow-rumped Warblers both caught and moving through the banding site. A sign of things to come as we soon expect them to overturn Gray Catbirds as our dominant species banded.

Blue-headed Vireo (after hatch year, sex unknown)

Blue-headed Vireo wing, you can see the colour of all the covert and flight feathers is uniform and the ends of the feathers are broad and have a shape similar to butter knives, as opposed to hatch year birds whose feathers have pointy ends and are shaped like steak knives. This is especially noticeable in this birds rects. (after-hatch year, sex unknown)

-Nancy

Little Bear
Another slow day in between cold fronts. Only 24 new birds and 14 recaptured birds made for a slow morning.

Highlight of the morning was another Orange-crowned Warbler, making it the third for the site this season. Yellow-rumped Warblers continue being caught at a steady rate to give a current total of 36 birds for the site this season. The site also continues to produce new Northern Cardinals - we're up to 63 birds since the 7th September.

Due to the slow pace we were able to pay more attention than usual to our surroundings. Some of the vegetation is showing the after effects of the recent flooding at the site. We noticed a number of large Glass Lizards and a couple of Black Racer snakes have reappeared in the area. Deer are also making a return to the area, as damage to our nets have shown. The recent increase in temperature and decrease in wind have allowed butterflies to be more prominent with Monarchs, Long-tailed Skippers, Gulf Fritillaries and Common Buckeyes in smaller numbers than in early September. In recent days Long-tailed Skippers and Common Buckeyes have been observed mating ready for next year's populations. In the now muddy footpaths a mud turtle was found enjoying the mud.

- Chris

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Eastern Phoebe Blue-headed Vireo	- 1	1 -	- -	- -
Carolina Chickadee	-	-	-	1
House Wren	2	1	-	-
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	2	-	1	-
Gray Catbird	11	8	9	7
Northern Waterthrush	-	-	-	1
Orange-crowned Warbler	-	-	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	2	1	1	1
American Redstart	-	-	-	1
Palm Warbler (Western)	-	-	1	-
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)	5	-	6	-
Prairie Warbler	-	-	-	1
Song Sparrow	1	-	1	-
Swamp Sparrow	1	1	1	1
Northern Cardinal	-	-	1	1
Indigo Bunting	1	-	-	-
Painted Bunting	-	-	2	-

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	26	24	50
# of Recaptures	12	14	26
# of Species	10	14	18
Effort (net-hours)	125.0	76.0	201.0
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	30.4	50.0	37.8
Nets	25	16	41

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