Yellow Birds of Summer

Captain Sam's:

Pleasant conditions for August continued this morning out on the spit, leading to another productive banding session. While a plethora of Painted Buntings and some raucous Brown Thrashers kept things interesting, it was a hatch-year male Orchard Oriole that stole the show. This little yellow oriole is a less than annual capture for KIBS and was a pleasant surprise for the crew. The Orchard Oriole we caught today is still about a year away from gaining his flashy chestnut and black adult plumage, and has not yet grown the black chin and throat that most birders associate with young males of the species. We were able to determine the bird's sex simply by the length of its wing.

Hatching Year Orchard Oriole, male by wing chord

Not to be outdone, a hatch-year male Prothonotary Warbler also came in to be banded. A much more expected species here, it still draws its fair share of ohhs and ahhs with its strikingly bright yellow plumage

Hatching year Prothonotary Warbler, male by plumage

--Josh

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Yellow-billed Cuckoo	1	-	-	-
White-eyed Vireo	-	1	-	-
Red-eyed Vireo	2	-	-	-
Carolina Chickadee	1	3	-	-
Tufted Titmouse	-	1	-	-
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher	1	-	-	-
Carolina Wren	2	2	-	-
Brown Thrasher	2	-	-	-
Eastern Towhee	1	-	-	-
Orchard Oriole	1	-	-	-
Northern Waterthrush	7	1	-	-
Prothonotary Warbler	1	-	-	-
American Redstart	1	-	-	-
Prairie Warbler	4	2	-	-
Northern Cardinal	1	1	-	-
Painted Bunting	9	5	-	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	34	-
# of Recaptures	16	-
# of Species	16	-
Effort (net-hours)	145.6	-
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	34.3	-
# of Nets	28	-

2019 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	115	13	128
# of Recaptures	40	2	42
# of Species	22	3	22
Effort (net-hours)	488.8	15.75	504.5
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	31.7	65.2	33.7
# of Days	4	1

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS) 
Kristin Attinger (CS)
Bethany Darby (CS)
Josh Lefever (CS)