Day One at Little Bear

CAPTAIN SAM'S

Although we had fewer birds than Little Bear today, the Painted Buntings did not disappoint, as evidenced by a gorgeous after hatch year male caught towards the end of the day. We also banded several new Northern Waterthrush throughout the day, an early fall migrant. 

We also recaptured a female Painted Bunting that was originally banded on 7/19/2012 as a second-year making this bird 7 years old!  This bird not banded at the banding site but was banded at a bird feeder a mile or two up the Kiawah River from Captain Sam's.  We've had quite a history with this lady over the years.  She was captured 5 times during the fall of 2012, twice during the fall of 2013, and once during the fall of 2015.  It's nice to know that she is still hanging around!

An example of a "typical" male Painted Bunting, with a completely red breast (banded today at Captain Sam's)

LITTLE BEAR
Today marks our first day banding at both our Captain Sam's and Little Bear banding stations this season. For the past few days, the crew have been setting up nets and preparing our Little Bear site, and our efforts payed off today as Little Bear outperformed Captain Sam's in terms of birds banded, with 25 new birds and 3 recaptures.

Some exciting highlights at Little Bear were a FOS (first of season) after hatch year Red-eyed Vireo, and a male Painted Bunting showing off some unusual yellow plumage (pictured below).

Male after second year Painted Bunting banded at Little Bear - note the yellow on the breast

It is possible this yellow coloration (instead of the typical red) is due to a genetic mutation-- the same mutation that caused the male Northern Cardinal found in Alabama earlier this year to develop completely yellow feathers. You can check out this article from the Audubon Society for more details on this fascinating phenomenon, and even follow the "yellow cardinal" on Facebook here.

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Red-eyed Vireo	-	-	1	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	-	1	-
Carolina Wren	-	1	1	1
Northern Mockingbird	1	1	-	-
Northern Waterthrush	5	-	4	-
American Redstart	-	-	1	-
Prairie Warbler	-	-	11	-
Northern Cardinal	-	3	2	-
Painted Bunting	4	1	4	2

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	10	25	35
# of Recaptures	6	3	9
# of Species	5	8	9
Effort (net-hours)	128.8	65.0	193.8
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	12.4	43	22.7
# of Nets	28	20	48

2018 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	163	25	188
# of Recaptures	49	3	52
# of Species	18	8	19
Effort (net-hours)	1047.2	65.0	1112.2
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	20.2	43.0	21.6
# of Days	8	1	-

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Danaé Mouton (CS)
Meredith Heather (CS)
Micheal Gamble (LB)
Kristin Attinger (LB)