Slower day between fronts - but 2000th new bird at Little Bear

Captain Sam's
We had a slightly slower but steady morning today at Captain Sam's. We banded 37 new individuals and recaptured 18 of 11 species. Gray Catbirds and Myrtle Warblers made up the majority of the catch with 27 and 14 of each species.

Our highlights of the day include 2 Yellow-billed Cuckoos, which is a little later than expected for them to be coming through, and a Sharp-shinned Hawk. This was our second hawk of the season at Captain Sam's, the bird captured was a nice looking hatch year female.

We're expecting another front to move through in the next couple of days and hope to be slightly busier then.

-Nancy

Little Bear 

Little Bear reached 2000, make that 2001, new birds banded for the season today.  This morning seemed slow but we ended up having a total of 61 new birds and 17 recaptures, comprised of only 10 species.  We had several net rounds with little to no birds but a few flocks of Yellow-rumped Warblers and a small influx of Gray Catbirds allowed us to reach the 2000 mark.  

During one of the slower rounds, we had the opportunity to compare and photograph a pair of Swamp Sparrows that represented different age classes.  In the fall, there is a quick trick to aging Swamp Sparrows and it involves simply looking at color of their supercilium (eyebrow).  Hatch year birds will often have a yellow wash to their supercilium and will have a limited amount of rufous in the crown.  Adult birds will have a crisp gray supercilium and will often have a moderate amount of rufous in the crown.  As with any aging trick, it always a good idea to look for other indicators such as skull ossification and molt limits to be sure the bird is aged correctly.     

-Mattie

Swamp Sparrow (hatch year)

Swamp Sparrow (after hatch year)

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Sharp-shinned Hawk	1	-	-	-
Yellow-billed Cuckoo	2	-	-	-
Downy Woodpecker	-	1	-	-
Eastern Phoebe	1	-	-	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	1	1	-
Carolina Wren	-	1	-	1
House Wren	-	1	2	1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	-	1	-	-
Hermit Thrush	2	1	-	-
Gray Catbird	16	11	24	7
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)	12	2	27	2
Common Yellowthroat	1	-	1	2
Eastern Towhee	-	-	-	1
Swamp Sparrow	1	2	5	-
Northern Cardinal	-	-	-	2
Painted Bunting	1	-	1	1

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	37	61	98
# of Recaptures	18	17	35
# of Species	11	10	16
Effort (net-hours)	127.5	88.0	215.5
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	43.1	88.6	61.7
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)