FOS: White-crowned Sparrow and Bobolink

Captain Sam's
We had a pretty good morning compared to the last week with 43 new birds and 20 recaptures of 14 species. As we were opening nets, we heard an Eastern Whip-poor-will but unfortunately were not able to catch it in one of our nets. The highlight of the morning was a White-crowned Sparrow, which we do not catch very often at KIBS and if we do, it is usually just one. This one ended up being a young bird as it was lacking the black and white crown stripes that the adults get, which is an easy field mark when identifying them in the field. Young birds have brown markings on the head instead of black and white (below).

White-crowned Sparrow (hatch-year, sex unknown)

After banding at Captain Sam's, the tides were high enough that we were able to do some marsh sparrow banding. We caught Seaside Sparrows and a Saltmarsh Sparrow, but the highlight was this Clapper Rail!

Clapper Rail (hatch-year, sex unknown)

-Michael

Little Bear 

Last night was the first night in about week that the radar was lit up with migrants along the Atlantic Flyway.  Although the winds were not ideal to bring these migrants into our area, we did see better numbers today with 50 new birds and 6 recaptures, representing 12 species.  Highlights of the day included a late Worm-eating Warbler and our second Black-throated Green Warbler of the season.  But hands down, our best bird of the day was our first-of-the-season Bobolink that came in on our last net run.  This is the third ever Bobolink to be captured at KIBS.  

Bobolink (hatch-year, female(based on wing chord))

Bobolinks have an incredible annual migration and can travel up to 12,500 miles in a year.  They breed in the grasslands of the northern United States and southern Canada and spend their winters as far south as Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil.  Bobolinks also have an interesting molt strategy, being one of only a few songbirds to undergo two complete molts a year.  Shortly after breeding season, adults will undergo a complete prebasic molt.  In their prebasic/winter plumages, males and female are not dimorphic and both sexes look very similar to a female in breeding plumage.  On their wintering grounds, Bobolinks undergo another complete molt, bringing in their alternate/breeding plumage.  Males are very striking in their black and white plumage and are the only American bird to have black on the underparts and white on the upperparts.    

Adult male Bobolink on breeding grounds in Sharon, CT

  -Mattie                 

 

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Common Ground-Dove	-	1	-	-
White-eyed Vireo	-	1	-	-
House Wren	5	1	14	1
Carolina Wren	-	1	-	1
Swainson's Thrush	-	-	1	-
Gray Catbird	22	8	13	4
Northern Mockingbird	-	2	-	-
White-crowned Sparrow	1	-	-	-
Yellow-breasted Chat	1	-	-	-
Bobolink	-	-	1	-
Ovenbird	-	-	1	-
Worm-eating Warbler	-	-	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	5	3	7	-
American Redstart	-	1	-	-
Palm Warbler (western)	5	-	8	-
Prairie Warbler	1	-	-	-
Black-throated Green Warbler	-	-	1	-
Northern Cardinal	-	1	1	-
Painted Bunting	3	1	2	-

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	43	50	93
# of Recaptures	20	6	26
# of Species	14	12	19
Effort (net-hours)	115.7	90.0	205.7
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	54.5	62.2	57.9
# of Nets	26	20	46

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