FOS Yellow Warbler and Brown-headed Cowbird

It was a pretty good second day out at Captain Sam's this morning. We captured 31 new birds and 7 recaptures of 10 species. Even though it is still really hot and humid, this is a great start to the banding season. We caught another 13 painted buntings, which puts us near 30 banded in the last two days, so it may turn out to be a good year for them. There were a lot more eastern kingbirds around than I am used to seeing at the spit and we ended up catching one. It still had brown juvenile feathers mixed in with the newer black feathers on the head and back (pictured below).

Eastern Kingbird (hatch-year, unknown sex)

We also caught a juvenile Brown-headed Cowbird, which is an unlikely catch during the fall. Female cowbirds do not build nests, but they will lay their eggs in other species' nests. Most species do not recognize cowbird eggs and once they hatch, the host species will take care of the cowbird nestlings most of the time to the detriment of their own young. Some species have evolved to cope with cowbird nest parasitism by recognizing and throwing out cowbird eggs (Gray Catbird) or building another nest over their old one (Yellow Warbler).

Michael

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Great Crested Flycatcher	-	1	-	-
Eastern Kingbird	1	-	-	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	1	-	-
Carolina Wren	2	2	-	-
Northern Mockingbird	4	-	-	-
Brown-headed Cowbird	1	-	-	-
Northern Waterthrush	2	-	-	-
Yellow Warbler	1	-	-	-
Prairie Warbler	7	-	-	-
Painted Bunting	13	3	-	-

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	31	-	31
# of Recaptures	7	-	7
# of Species	10	-	10
Effort (net-hours)	151.2	-	151.2
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	25.1	-	25.1
# of Nets	28	-	28

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Michael Gamble (CS)
Kristen Attinger (CS)
Meredith Heather (CS)
Danae Mouton (CS)