The Tide is High, But We're Holdin' On

Captain Sam's:

We didn't open nets today at Little Bear because of the high winds, so two of us took the day off while the rest went to Captain Sam's. The king tides have arrived, flooding many of our net trails and bringing water almost all the way up to the banding station. King tides occur when the moon is new or full (close to new, currently) and is closest to the earth in its monthly orbit. During king tides, also called Perigean Spring Tides, the gravitational pull of the sun and moon align to produce higher water levels. For us, this means rubber boots and setting nets higher to keep them out of the water. Learn more about king tides here. 

Rising waters threaten the banding station (Photo: SM)

Despite the wind and high waters, we had a solid day with a total of 60 birds. Numbers of Common Yellowthroats continue to increase with 31 new individuals banded today - over half of our total new captures (57 birds). Exciting captures included a hatch-year female Cape May Warbler and a recaptured hatch-year Great Crested Flycatcher, who was first banded on August 16th. 

Hatch-year Great Crested Flycatcher (Photo: SS)

-Sarah M.

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Great Crested Flycatcher	-	1	-	-
Veery	1	-	-	-
Northern Mockingbird	1	-	-	-
Ovenbird	3	-	-	-
Northern Waterthrush	4	-	-	-
Black-and-white Warbler	2	-	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	31	1	-	-
American Redstart	13	-	-	-
Cape May Warbler	1	-	-	-
Prairie Warbler	1	-	-	-
Painted Bunting	-	1	-	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	57	-	57
# of Recaptures	3	-	3
# of Species	11	-	11
Effort (net-hours)	112.95	-	112.95
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	53.1	-	53.1
# of Nets	25	-	-

2020 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	803	452	1255
# of Recaptures	250	88	338
# of Species	35	36	43
Effort (net-hours)	3,576.85	1899.2	5,476.05
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	29.4	28.4	29.1
# of Days	31	22	-

 

Banding Staff

Sarah Mueller (CS)
Sarah Stewart (CS)
Kristin Attinger (CS)
Josh Lefever (CS)