Friday, October 30, 2015

Day of Rarities!

Captain Sam's

Today was quite the interesting day at Captain Sam's, along with getting 4 first of season birds for our site, we also had several interesting recaptures! This morning we pulled in 109 new birds, and 22 recaptures for a total of 21 species. Four of those were new for our site for the year, Orange-crowned Warbler, Bay-breasted Warbler, Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, and a Chipping Sparrow. With the exclusion of the Orange-crowned Warbler these birds are very uncommon captures for our site, with one individual showing up maybe every one to two years. 

In addition to all our exciting new birds we had several old recaptures from years past. Although none were foreign recaptures it is still nice to see birds coming back to the same spots year after year. We had three birds that were banded last year, a Hermit Thrush, a Swamp Sparrow, and a Yellow-rumped Warbler. We had a recaptured Carolina Chickadee that was banded originally in 2013, although he has come back to check on us 15 times since then! Lastly we had a Yellow-rumped Warbler that was banded back in 2011! That means he has made the trip up north and back at least four times, and he's still going strong!

-Sean
HY Male Bay-breasted Warbler

HY Yellow-bellied Flycatcher

HY Chipping Sparrow

Little Bear

We had a really good day today out at Little Bear with 80 new birds and 15 recaptures of 21 different species. There was a lot of variety in species and the site got its first-of-the season Hermit Thrush! I was waiting to catch this species and see it in the hand, since I have only seen them a couple times in the field. Yellow-rumped Warblers and Gray Catbirds tied for the most birds of the day with 21, and this pattern should continue throughout the week. We also caught a beautiful Magnolia Warbler, which was surprising to see this late in the season. It was nice to have so many birds and great variety after not being able to band the last couple days due to rain. Hopefully tomorrow turns out even better!

-Michael 

Magnolia Warbler (hatch-year, male)

  Species Captain Sam's Little Bear
New Recaps New Recaps
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher 1 - - -
Eastern Phoebe 1 - 2 -
White-eyed Vireo - 1 - 1
Red-eyed Vireo - - 2 -
Carolina Chickadee 1 3 - 1
Carolina Wren - - - 1
House Wren 1 - - -
Marsh Wren - - 1 -
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 7 - 4 -
Swainson's Thrush - - 2 -
Hermit Thrush 10 1 9 -
Gray Catbird 6 11 14 7
Orange-crowned Warbler 2 - 2 -
Magnolia Warbler - - 1 -
Common Yellowthroat 3 1 5 1
Northern Parula 1 - - -
Bay-breasted Warbler 1 - - -
Black-throated Blue Warbler 2 - 2 -
Palm Warbler (Western) 3 - 2 -
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) 50 2 21 -
Chipping Sparrow 1 - - -
Song Sparrow 5 - 2 1
Swamp Sparrow 6 1 8 1
Northern Cardinal 2 - - 1
Indigo Bunting - - 1 -
Painted Bunting 5 - 3 -
House Finch 1 - - -


 Banding Stats Captain Sam's Little Bear TOTAL
# Birds Banded 109 81 190
# of Recaptures 20 14 34
# of Species 21 21 27
Effort (net-hours) 145.75 98.7 244.5
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) 89.0 97.2 91.6
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)

10/29/15

Captain Sam's
Well, it was not as good as I was hoping but we banded 34 new birds and had 12 recaptures of 13 different species.   It was nice to still see some neotropical warblers moving through such as Northern Waterthrush, Northern Parula, and Cape May Warbler.  

Little Bear 
Although the rain has cleared away, our return to Little Bear was still pretty wet, with 11 of our 16 net lanes flooded.  The birds did not seem to mind the flooding, as we ended up having a good morning with 62 new birds and 10 recaptures, comprised of 17 species.  Highlights included not one but two more Yellow-billed Cuckoos which brings our season total up to 9.  We also banded our fifth Orange-crowned Warbler of the season.  

-Mattie


  Species Captain Sam's Little Bear
New Recaps New Recaps
Yellow-billed Cuckoo - - 2 -
Eastern Wood-Pewee
Eastern Phoebe
1
-
-
-
-
2
-
-
Carolina Chickadee - - - 1
House Wren 1 - - 2
Marsh Wren - - 1 -
Carolina Wren - 1 - 1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 4 - - -
Hermit Thrush 1 - - -
Gray Catbird 16 10 26 2
Northern Waterthrush 1 - - -
Orange-crowned Warbler
Northern Parula
-
1
-
-
1
-
-
-
Common Yellowthroat - - 3 1
Cape May Warbler 1 - - -
Black-throated Blue Warbler - - 1 -
Palm Warbler (Western) - - 1 -
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) 8 - 16 1
Prairie Warbler - - 2 -
Song Sparrow - - 1 -
Swamp Sparrow 1 - 1 -
Northern Cardinal 1 1 1 1
Indigo Bunting - - 1 -
Painted Bunting 1 - 3 -


 Banding Stats Captain Sam's Little Bear TOTAL
# Birds Banded 34 62 96
# of Recaptures 12 9 22
# of Species 13 17 24
Effort (net-hours) 131.25 80.0 211.25
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) 35.1 88.75 55.9
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)