November 11, 2016

Captain Sam's
At Captain Sam's this morning, we caught 33 new birds and 17 recaptures of 15 species. We continue to get recaptures that were banded in previous years, including mostly Yellow-rumped Warblers. Some other highlights were a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and Blue-headed Vireo. The Blue-headed Vireo is the third most common vireo we catch, behind the Red-eyed Vireo and White-eyed Vireo. This used to be one species, known as the Solitary Vireo, before it was split into three species in 1997, which was due to new molecular data that showed they were distinct species. These three different species are now the Blue-headed, Cassin's, and Plumbeous Vireo. The Blue-headed Vireo is another one of our wintering birds on Kiawah and across most of the state.

Blue-headed Vireo (after hatch-year)

Blue-headed Vireo (after hatch-year)
In this picture, you can see it has replaced all its greater coverts,
alulas (A1-A3), and primary coverts. Since everything is replaced and
uniform, it's an adult bird.

Blue-headed Vireo (hatch-year)
In this picture, you can see it has replaced all its greater coverts, the carpal
covert, and A1 but not A1, A2, or the primary coverts. These are retained juvenile
feathers, making this a hatch-year bird. 

-Michael Gamble

Little Bear
Things picked up somewhat at Little Bear from yesterday, with 26 new birds and 15 recaptures, representing 13 different species. We had yet another Sharp-shinned Hawk, this time a nice after second-year male, and our first-of-season Field Sparrow.

Sharp-shinned Hawk (After second-year male)

Field Sparrow (After hatch-year, sex unknown)

Probably the most interesting event of the morning involved a bird we didn't manage to get hold of. Around 9:15 as we were checking the nets, one of the Northern Harriers that has been frequenting Little Bear over the past week was cruising through the middle of the site while holding a Hermit Thrush that it had caught somewhere. The harrier, presumably focused more on the meal it was about to eat than on the direction it was flying, went straight into the top pocket of net 4 near the banding table. The confused harrier hung in the net for a second, dropped the thrush, and flapped free of the net and up to the top of a dead tree at one end of the net-lane. Michael Rodgers rounded the corner in the trail to net 4 just in time to see it all happen.

--Blaine

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Sharp-shinned Hawk	-	-	1	-
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker	1	-	-	-
Eastern Phoebe	2	-	1	-
Blue-headed Vireo	1	-	-	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	1	-	-
Carolina Wren	-	-	-	1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	8	-	3	-
Hermit Thrush	4	1	2	-
Gray Catbird	1	4	2	9
Northern Mockingbird	-	1	-	1
Orange-crowned Warbler	1	-	-	1
Palm Warbler (Western)	-	-	1	-
Palm Warbler (Yellow)	3	-	-	-
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)	8	6	14	2
Field Sparrow	-	-	1	-
Swamp Sparrow	2	2	-	-
White-throated Sparrow	1	-	-	-
Northern Cardinal	-	1	-	1
Painted Bunting	1	-	1	-

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	33	26	59
# of Recaptures	16	15	31
# of Species	15	13	18
Effort (net-hours)	153.4	114.0	267.4
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	31.9	36.0	33.7
# of Nets	26	20	46

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Blaine Carnes (LB)
Mattie VandenBoom (CS)
Alison Nevins (LB)
Col Lauzau (LB)
Michael Gamble (CS)
Michael Rodgers (LB)
Ryan Donnelly (CS)
Nancy Raginski (CS)