Thursday, October 12, 2017

A Day of Firsts!

Captain Sam's
For most of the morning at Captain Sam's, overcast skies gave us a welcome respite from this week's unusually high temperatures, until the sun peaked out around 11:00am. After a slow couple of weeks, we saw a nice bump in activity today, catching 72 new birds and 22 recaptures of 19 species. This nice species diversity brought us three Eastern Phoebes, a Wood Thrush, a Gray-cheeked Thrush, a Yellow-billed Cuckoo, an Ovenbird, and two Black-throated Blue Warblers, among many others. 


Eastern Phoebe (hatch-year, sex unknown)
Wood Thrush (hatch-year, sex unknown)

That would have made for a great day, but the cherry on the top was a gorgeous hatch-year Yellow-throated Vireo. Despite these birds being fairly common across the eastern United States, this is just the second individual we have banded on Kiawah Island. The first was caught in 2009 at an early experimental banding site, so this was the first individual for Captain Sam's.


Yellow-throated Vireo (hatch-year, unknown sex)

-Hannah


Little Bear
Migration is beginning to pick up again! Today at little bear we captured 129 birds, with 115 birds being newly banded and 14 being recaptures. We had some pretty great diversity today! Many warbler species such as Tennessee warbler, Cape May Warbler, Northern Parula, and Black-throated Blue. We also were delighted to see a first of the season Orange-crowned Warbler and a first ever Eastern Bluebird!
Eastern Bluebird (After Hatch-year, Male)

Vibrant Blue Wing!
We enjoyed taking in the vibrant blue color of this fun visitor at our station today! The blue color in feathers of many birds is actually a structural color. This means that the color is formed by light refracting back to our eyes to appear as the color of blue instead of physically being blue. Without proper lighting these feathers could look completely different, appearing as either black or a dull gray color.

-Kristen

  SpeciesCaptain Sam'sLittle Bear
NewRecapsNewRecaps
Common Ground-Dove
-
-
1
-
Yellow-billed Cuckoo
1
-
-
-
Downy Woodpecker
-
-
-
1
Eastern Phoebe
3
-
-
-
Yellow-throated Vireo
1
-
-
-
Carolina Chickadee
-
-
-
1
House Wren
4
-
6
1
Carolina Wren
-
-
-
1
Eastern Bluebird
-
-
1
-
Gray-cheeked Thrush
1
-
-
-
Swainson's Thrush
-
-
2
-
Wood Thrush
1
-
-
-
Gray Catbird
38
17
47
5
Northern Mockingbird
-
1
-
-
Eastern Towhee
1
-
-
1
Ovenbird
1
-
-
-
Black-and-white Warbler
-
-
1
-
Tennessee Warbler
-
-
2
-
Orange-crowned Warbler
-
-
1
-
Common Yellowthroat41191
American Redstart3-2-
Cape May Warbler--1-
Northern Parula--3-
Black-throated Blue Warbler2-4-
Palm Warbler (western)1-15-
Prairie Warbler-12-
Northern Cardinal4--2
Indigo Bunting3-2-
Painted Bunting3151



 Banding StatsCaptain Sam'sLittle BearTOTAL
# Birds Banded
72
115
187
# of Recaptures
22
14
36
# of Species
19
22
29
Effort (net-hours)
127.4
116.0
243.4
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)
73.8
111.2
91.6
# of Nets
26
20
46


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

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