Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Another cold morning and another Chuck-wills-widow!

Captain Sam's
We had another cool morning in the 50s today, unfortunately as with the past couple of cold days it didn't bring in the birds as expected. Despite not getting the numbers we hoped for we managed to band 25 new individuals and recaptured 13 of 9 species. As we've been seeing the past couple of days Gray Catbirds dominated the catch and made up over half the overall birds processed. Though our species diversity wasn't very high we did see a nice selection of migrants, including a Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Northern Parula, and Ruby-crowned Kinglets.

Our highlight of the day came in the very first net round and was a very big surprise for everyone, a Chuck-wills-widow! This is the second of the season for Captain Sam's, but it's a nocturnal bird you often don't get great looks at or find in your nets very often. For a lot of our banding crew this was their first oppurtunity to see a nightjar in the hand so everyone was very excited by the catch.

-Nancy


Chuck-wills-widow (hatch year, sex unknown)


Chuck-wills-widow (hatch year, sex unknown)


Little Bear
This morning started out great with a very busy first few net rounds, but as winds rose, bird movement slowed substantially. We ended the day early in blustering gusts, with 35 newly banded birds and 17 recaptures. Highlights of the day included yet another new Common Ground-dove, as well as a new Downy Woodpecker and another day of 7 new Yellow-rumped Warblers. Soon we will have more butterbutts than we know what to do with!

-Casey

  Species Captain Sam's Little Bear
New Recaps New Recaps
Common Ground-Dove - - 1 1
Yellow-billed Cuckoo 1 - - -
Chuck-will's-widow 1 - - -
Downy Woodpecker - - 1 -
White-eyed Vireo - 1 1 -
Carolina Chickadee - - - 1
House Wren 2 - 3 -
Carolina Wren - - - 1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 1 1 - -
Gray Catbird 14 10 13 9
Northern Waterthrush - - - 2
Common Yellowthroat 4 1 3 -
Northern Parula 1 - - -
Palm Warbler (Western) - - 1 -
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) - - 7 -
Prairie Warbler - - 1 -
Swamp Sparrow 1 - 3 1
Northern Cardinal 1 - 1 -
Painted Bunting - - - 2


 Banding Stats Captain Sam's Little Bear TOTAL
# Birds Banded 26 35 61
# of Recaptures 13 17 40
# of Species 9 15 19
Effort (net-hours) 122.3 65.5 187.8
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) 31.9 79.4 53.8
Nets 25 15 40

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