A Veery Good Day

Captain Sam's:

After a slow week at both sites, we were happy to catch 61 birds today (54 new and 7 recaps). We had one FOS – a Veery! A Veery was captured at Little Bear on Sept 5th, but this was the first one for Captain Sam’s this season. We aged it as a hatch-year based on the buffy tips on its greater coverts and tertials.

Hatch-year Veery. Large eyes help them see in their dense woodland habitat (Photo: SM)

 

Veeries get their name from their song, a flute-like, descending series of “veers.” Veeries don’t breed here on Kiawah Island, but are migrating through on their way from breeding grounds in the northern US and Canada to wintering habitat mostly in Brazil. One study using radio telemetry showed that Veeries can migrate up to 160 miles in one night and can fly above 1.2 miles high!

 

We released our young Veery with well wishes for its long journey, with still over 3,000 miles to go to Brazil!

 

-Sarah M.

Little Bear:

Migration is finally picking up! We caught 39 new birds and 4 recaptures today with some exciting FOS captures for the site. A Northern Parula, a Palm Warbler, and a Cape May Warbler all ended up in our nets this morning, signaling more northern migrants to come. All members of the genus Setophaga, these three species breed as far north as the boreal region of Canada (although Parulas also breed in the south) and migrate to the Caribbean for the winter. So it goes without saying that these birds have flown many miles between the three of them to get to Kiawah. We're looking forward to getting more northern warblers as the season goes on! Below I've included a photo of the warblers and a random fact about each just for fun :)

HY male Northern Parula.
Parulas construct nests high in trees almost exclusively from
epiphytes such as Spanish Moss and various lichens.
This is one reason their breeding range extends to the southeast,
where these materials are abundant. 1

HY Palm Warbler (unknown sex).
This species is one of the few ground-nesting warblers -
they primarily glean insects on the ground as well. 2

AHY male Cape May Warbler.
Cape Mays have a uniquely-shaped tongue that
they use to collect nectar from tubular flowers
in their Caribbean wintering habitat. 3

- Sarah S.

Sources:

1. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Parula/overview

2. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Palm_Warbler/lifehistory

3. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Cape_May_Warbler/overview

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Traill's Flycatcher	1	-	-	-
White-eyed Vireo	1	1	4	-
Red-eyed Vireo	7	-	1	-
Carolina Wren	-	2	1	2
Veery	1	-	-	-
Northern Mockingbird	-	-	1	-
Ovenbird	1	-	1	-
Northern Waterthrush	2	-	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	32	-	16	-
American Redstart	5	-	1	-
Cape May Warbler	-	-	1	-
Northern Parula	-	-	1	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	1	-	-	-
Palm Warbler	-	-	1	-
Prairie Warbler	1	-	1	-
Northern Cardinal	-	2	1	1
Painted Bunting	2	2	8	1

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	61	43	104
# of Recaptures	7	4	11
# of Species	13	14	17
Effort (net-hours)	138	89.2	227.2
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	44.2	48.2	92.4
# of Nets	30	22	-

2020 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	713	404	1,117
# of Recaptures	245	84	329
# of Species	35	36	43
Effort (net-hours)	3,370.46	1,861.35	5,231.81
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	28.4	26.2	27.6
# of Days	29	21	-

 

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)
Sarah Mueller (CS)

Dan Errichetti (CS)
Kristin Attinger (CS)
Sarah Stewart (LB)
Vincent Weber (LB)
Josh Lefever (LB)