Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Weak Cold Front

Captain Sam's

Overnight winds from the North West brought in a small wave of migrants to Captain Sam’s this morning.  We ended our banding session with a total of 88 new birds and 8 recaptures, comprised of 15 species.  A highlight from this morning included a first-of- the-season House Wren. 

Since the start of KIBS back in 2009, over 20,000 birds have been banded as part of the fall monitoring program.  Over the years a total of 115 different species have been banded.  Some of the species have only been encountered once but there are several species that have had over a thousand individuals banded and even one species has had over 5,000 individuals banded.   The top five species are as follows:

  1. Common Yellowthroat (5,170)     
  2. Yellow-rumped Warbler (3,822)
  3. Gray Catbird (2,712)
  4. Red-eyed Vireo (842)
  5. American Redstart (763)
-Mattie


Little Bear

A relatively disappointingly slow day with 27 new and 9 recaptured birds of 13 species. There were various birds calling and moving around all morning but few in the nets. This may have been due to the increase in wind around 08:30 this morning.

On arrival one of our furled nets (loops closed and netting wrapped around the shelf strings and tied close) had been knocked over by a passing Deer. The net wasn't damaged but this is the third encounter with deer our nets have had and with the least damage.

 The most interesting birds were the Yellow-breasted Chat, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher and a recaptured White-eyed Vireo originally banded on the first day of banding at Little Bear. Although Common Yellowthroats were the most numerous species trapped, it was a nice surprise to catch 5 Yellow Warblers.

- Chris

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (HY-U)
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (Hatch-year, Unknown sex) by Casey Wiessburg


  Species Captain Sam's Little Bear
New Recaps New Recaps
Downy Woodpecker -1 - -
Traill's Flycatcher1 - - -
White-eyed Vireo 2 - 1 3
Red-eyed Vireo 4- 2 1
Carolina Chickadee- - - 2
Carolina Wren - 1 - -
House Wren 1 - - -
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher - - 1 -
Gray Catbird 3 - 1 -
Yellow Warbler 3 - 5 -
Black-throated Blue Warbler 2 - - -
Prairie Warbler - - 1 -
Palm Warbler (Western) 1 - - -
Black-and-white Warbler - - 1 -
American Redstart 3 - - 1
Northern Waterthrush 1 - - -
Common Yellowthroat 66 2 11 2
Yellow-breasted Chat - - 1 -
Northern Cardinal 1 3 2 -
Painted Bunting - 1 1 -

 Banding Stats Captain Sam's Little Bear TOTAL
# Birds Banded 88 27 115
# of Recaptures 8 9 17
# of Species 15 13 20
Effort (net-hours) 127.1 50.0 177.1
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) 75.5 72.0 64.9
Nets 25 10 35

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