Wednesday, September 9, 2015

09/09/2015

CAPTAIN SAM'S
Unfavorable migration conditions continued overnight with southerly winds and heavy, loud thunderstorms. Consequently, we only captured 15 new birds today, with 2 recaptures, of 10 species total. Despite these low numbers, we had quite a good warbler day, with 6 of the 10 species being warblers and two of them first-of-seasons: a stunning adult male Cape May Warbler in non-breeding plumage, and a hatch year female Yellow-breasted Chat! We also captured and banded another new Baltimore Oriole, our third of the season; it's turning out to be quite a good year for them! We are really looking forward to seeing what this incoming cold front will bring us this weekend.

-Casey

Adult male Cape May Warbler
Yellow-breasted Chat (HY F)
Photos by Casey Weissburg
LITTLE BEAR
After starting off the morning with a brief downpour our station was very wet and very slow. We captured 10 species for a total of 17 new birds banded and 4 recaptures. One of our highlights this morning, a hatch year Veery, came on our very first net run. It seemed that the only things that were abundant this morning were mosquitoes, ticks, and Cardinals. Although today we only caught 7 individual Cardinals, since opening the site on Monday we have banded 24 Cardinals out at Little Bear. Eventually resident birds begin to learn where our nets are and we will stop catching them, but for now we are getting a great chance to sample of the Cardinal population out there and it seems to be thriving.

-Sean


 Species Captain Sam's Little Bear
New Recaps New Recaps
Red-eyed Vireo 1 - - 1
Carolina Chickadee - - 1 -
Carolina Wren - - 1 -
Veery - - 1 -
Brown Thrasher - 1 - -
Yellow Warbler 3 - - -
Cape May Warbler 1 - - -
Prairie Warbler - - 1 -
American Redstart 1 - - -
Worm-eating Warbler 1 - - -
Northern Waterthrush - - 1 -
Common Yellowthroat 2 - 2 -
Hooded Warbler - - 1 -
Yellow-breasted Chat 1 - - -
Northern Cardinal -
4 3
Painted Bunting - 1 4 -
Baltimore Oriole 1 - - -

 Banding Stats Captain Sam's Little Bear TOTAL
# Birds Banded 15 17 32
# of Recaptures 2 4 6
# of Species 10 10 17
Effort (net-hours) 110.5 47.5 158
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) 15.38 44.2 24.1
Nets 25 10 35


BANDING STAFF
Aaron Given (CS)
Chris Snook (LB)
Nancy Raginski (CS)
Michael Gamble (LB)
Casey Weissburg (CS)
Sean McElaney (LB)