You Guessed It: Black-Whiskered Vireo

CAPTAIN SAM'S

It was another slow day out on the spit with only 6 new birds and 5 recaptures of 5 species.  Downy Woodpeckers were the most common bird of the day.  I am sure that is the first time this has happen in the 12 years that we have been banding on Kiawah Island.  A little excitement came when I captured a Great Crested Flycatcher in net #21.  This species is a common summer resident on Kiawah but they tend to migrate fairly early so if we don't catch one in August there is a good chance that we might not catch one all season.  The bird captured today was a young bird -- a hatch-year, meaning that is was hatched this summer.  To age this bird, I look at the wing coverts, in particularly the greater coverts.  In the photo below you will notice that there are two "groups" of greater coverts that look slightly different.  We call this a molt limit.  The group highlighted in red are the feathers replaced during it's preformative molt (the molt a bird does after fledgling but usually while it is still on it's nesting grounds).  The group of feathers highlighted in green are juvenal feathers.  These feather were the feathers that it grew while it was still in the nest.  This bird will likely retain those juvenal feathers as the preformative molt is oftentimes not complete.  Because there are two generations of the feathers within the same feather tract (and one being juvenal) we are able to age this bird as a hatch-year.  

Great Crested Flycatcher (hatch-year, sex unknown)

Now that you had to sit through a lesson on molt, I will turn it over to the Little Bear crew for some exciting news.  

-Aaron

LITTLE BEAR

This morning started out slow with only a few birds during each net run, and as the morning progressed numbers dwindled down even less.  While Josh and I were doing one of the net runs toward the end of the morning, I went up to one of the nets thinking that we had just captured our first Red-eyed Vireo of the season for Little Bear. As I was extracting the bird, I realized I might have something different and had to take a quick photo to send to Aaron right away.   This bird was extremely cool looking and I knew it was a bird that we have never had at KIBS before!  Aaron immediately closed down Captain Sam's and headed toward Little Bear.  Long behold the greatest bird captured today at Little Bear - a Black-whiskered Vireo!

Black-whiskered Vireo (hatch-year, sex unknown)

Photo: Josh Lefever

Photo: Aaron Given

After we released the bird, it flew into a Toothache Tree a short distance away and rested in a Smilax vine tangle growing in it.  We were able to watch the bird for a short time before he worked his way through the vines.  

Photo:  Keith McCullough

Photo: Keith McCullough

  

Black-whiskered Vireos are quite a rarity here. If accepted by the South Carolina Bird Records Committee, this will be the 2nd documented record of this species in the state.  Their summer range includes south Florida and the Caribbean islands with some birds migrating to northern South America for the winter while other may stay in the Caribbean.  Why this bird showed up in South Carolina is a mystery but it may have something to do with Hurricane Laura that just passed through the Caribbean as a tropical storm during the last couple of days.  We actually suspect that this bird might be from the Caribbean subspecies based on the browner overall appearance and the very long bill.  The bird had no fat and was quite "thin" therefore it being a storm-blown bird might actually make some sense.  I really hope it gets where it's going and thrives! Check out more about this bird here. We've had a good start to the fall and I hope more vagrants show up during the rest of the season.

-Kristin

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Great Crested Flycatcher	1	-	-	-
Downy Woodpecker	2	1	-	-
White-eyed Vireo	-	-	1	-
Black-Whiskered Vireo	-	-	1	-
Carolina Wren	-	-	1	1
Northern Waterthrush	2	-	2	-
Northern Cardinal	1	2	3	-
Painted Bunting	-	2	4	1

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	6	12	18
# of Recaptures	5	2	10
# of Species	5	6	8
Effort (net-hours)	90.0	104.0	194.0
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	12.2	13.46	14.4
# of Nets	30	20	50

2020 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	214	32	246
# of Recaptures	82	7	89
# of Species	27	8	28
Effort (net-hours)	1085.95	204.3	1290.25
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	27.2	19.1	26.0
# of Days	10	2	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kristin Attinger (LB)

Josh Lefever (LB)