"Banding" Bobcats

Captain Sam's

Today was a bit better than it has been over the past few days with 25 new birds and 2 recaptures, comprised of 8 species.  Highlight of the day included our first of the season Summer Tanager but the most interesting capture of the day was not a bird though.  After 3 nights of trapping, we finally captured a bobcat.      

Fall migration banding is only one of a handful of research projects being conducted by the wildlife biologist of Kiawah Island.  Since the early 2000’s, the town has been radio collaring Bobcats to get a better understand their habitat use, reproductive success, home range size, and response to development.  Today we had the opportunity to participate in this project when a bobcat wandered into a trap overnight.  This particular bobcat was tagged as a kitten in 2013 and has been collared every year since 2014.  Her GPS collar over the years has revealed that her range extends from Captain Sam’s down to Night Heron Park.  Today we replaced her collar and took several measurements including body length and weight and let her return to the wild.  For more information on the bobcat research being conducted on Kiawah Island, check out https://www.kiawahisland.org/wildlife/bobcat-research/          

 

Aaron collaring a bobcat

Little Bear

It was a surprisingly slow at Little Bear today with 9 new birds and 8 recaptures, made up of 10 species.  The wind was likely the one to blame for lower number of birds.  North east winds overnight caused the east coast to light up with migrants on radar but the easterly component likely kept birds inland.  The wind also picked up throughout the morning, making our nets more visible.  We decided to end a little early to observe the bobcat “banding” at Captain Sam’s.      

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Red-eyed Vireo	1	-	-	-
Yellow-breasted Chat	-	-	-	1
Carolina Wren	-	-	1	4
Ovenbird	-	1	1	-
Northern Waterthrush	10	1	2	-
Prothonotary Warbler	1	-	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	2	-	1	-
American Redstart	4	-	2	-
Yellow Warbler	-	-	1	-
Prairie Warbler	-	-	1	1
Summer Tanager	1	-	-	-
Northern Cardinal	-	-	-	1
Painted Bunting	6	-	-	1

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	25	9	34
# of Recaptures	2	8	10
# of Species	8	10	13
Effort (net-hours)	128.3	65.4	193.7
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	21.0	26.0	22.7
# of Nets	26	20	46

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Mattie VandenBoom (LB)
Michael Gamble (LB)
Kristen Oliver (CS)
Paul Carroll (CS)