Another Big Day And Several New Species

Captain Sam's:

We had another exciting day—280 captures! Along with the high number of birds, we also had several first of season birds, and on top of that, some have rarely been seen at the site let alone captured. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves for the most part. However, sometime around 11:30am several hundred Tree Swallows were flying low near our banding table, and were landing in a Wax Myrtle nearby in astonishing numbers. We immediately rushed a net over to that area in hopes of catching them. We managed to catch 28 in total!

Black-throated Green Warbler (DE)

Blue-winged Warbler (VW)

Tree Swallow (VW)

Clay-colored Sparrow (VW)

 

-Vincent

Little Bear:

We enjoyed another perfectly cool, autumn dawn while opening nets this morning. Things felt ripe for another big day, and even before getting back to the banding table to finish getting prepared to band, we had bagged a great bird- an Eastern Whip-poor-will! Exactly a month ago, on September 2nd, we had captured and banded the first ever Whip-poor-will at Little Bear, and this one was just as much of a surprise. On the first net run, we got another cool nocturnal bird, our third Eastern Screech-owl of the season.

Eastern Whip-poor-will (photo SM)

Eastern Screech-owl (photo SM)

After releasing the Screech-owl, we got to work on the diurnal birds. We had our third straight day with over 100 captures, but no other out of the ordinary species. A strong north wind forced us to start closing some nets early, and by noon our capture rate had slowed to a trickle. 

    It looks like the amazing migration conditions on the east coast will continue for tomorrow; it should be another exciting day out in the field!

-Josh

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Yellow-billed Cuckoo	3	-	-	-
Eastern Whip-poor-will	-	-	1	-
Eastern Screech-owl	-	-	1	-
White-eyed Vireo	7	2	4	-
Red-eyed Vireo	20	1	4	-
Tree Swallow	28	-	-	-
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher	1	-	-	-
House Wren	1	-	1	-
Carolina Wren	-	2	-	2
Gray Catbird	30	10	18	2
Brown Thrasher	2	-	-	-
Northern Mockingbird	1	-	1	-
Gray-cheeked Thrush	1	-	-	-
Swainson's Thrush	3	-	-	-
Clay-colored Sparrow	2	-	-	-
Yellow-breasted Chat	1	-	-	-
Ovenbird	2	-	1	-
Worm-eating Warbler	-	1	-	-
Northern Waterthrush	2	-	3	1
Blue-winged Warbler	1	-	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	24	4	12	2
American Redstart	60	3	33	-
Cape May Warbler	-	-	1	-
Northern Parula	4	-	5	-
Magnolia Warbler	1	-	-	-
Yellow Warbler	-	-	1	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	16	-	9	-
'Western' Palm Warbler	34	-	20	-
Prairie Warbler	3	-	2	-
Black-throated Green Warbler	1	-	-	-
Blue Grosbeak	1	-	-	-
Indigo Bunting	1	-	1	-
Painted Bunting	2	1	-	3

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	256	119	375
# of Recaptures	24	10	34
# of Species	30	20	33
Effort (net-hours)	179.9	109.0	288.9
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	157	118.3	141.6
# of Nets	30	23	-

2020 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	2306	1201	3507
# of Recaptures	444	163	607
# of Species	53	53	65
Effort (net-hours)	5694.56	3281.45	8976.01
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	48.3	41.6	45.8
# of Days	47	36	-

 

Banding Staff

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

Sarah Mueller (LB)