Common Ground Dove for the Win!

Captain Sam's:

Today was quit a slow day, with only 30 birds captured today. Out of those 30 birds 12 of them were recaptures. The most exciting bird that was captured to day is a first of the season Common Ground Dove! These little cuties are such a rare site to see nowadays. So you can imagine how happy we were capturing this bird! Over the past couple years their capture rate at KIBS has been going down. In 2018 no Common Ground Doves were captured and in 2019 only one was captured but was at Little Bear. It is very nice to see that there are still a few hanging around on Kiawah Island. 

Common Ground Doves are the most unique birds to look at. In my personal opinion, I like how their eye color is different than most species. This bird here has purple eyes if you look closely. Very interesting if I do say so!

After banding today, we later went out to participate in some saltmarsh banding with Aaron! Very little birds were moving around today but we did manage to capture 3 birds. 2 of them were Seaside sparrows and one of them was a Saltmarsh Sparrow.  Check out this blog from previous years that shows the differences between the subspecies of Seaside Sparrow, Nelson's Sparrow and Saltmarsh Sparrow. 

Seaside Sparrow 

Saltmarsh Sparrow 

I am hoping tomorrows wind shifts of Northwest winds brings in a few more first of the seasons for both sites! Stay tuned for tomorrows blog!

-Kristin 

Little Bear:

Another slowww morning for the Little Bear crew, with more recaptures than newly-banded birds. On days like this, an interesting capture is that much more exciting, which holds true for the pair of hatch-year Blue-gray Gnatcatchers we caught on our last net run! Little Bear has only had one gnatcatcher capture this season, making an appearance of two at once a nice surprise. Although they were both hatch-years, we aged them based off two different molt limits: an A1 (alular) limit and a tertial limit, respectively. 

A pair of HY Blue-gray Gnatcatchers (Photo: SS)

This week's migration forecast is looking up and we're expecting some busy days mid-week and over the weekend. Maybe we'll catch our first Yellow-rumped Warbler of the season tomorrow!

- Sarah S. 

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Common Ground Dove	1	-	-	-
Eastern Phoebe	1	-	-	-
White-eyed Vireo	-	1	-	1
Red-eyed Vireo	1	-	-	-
Carolina Wren	-	-	-	2
House Wren	2	-	-	-
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher	-	-	2	-
Swainson's Thrush	1	-	-	-
Gray Catbird	5	9	4	5
Brown Thrasher	-	1	-	-
Savannah Sparrow	-	-	1	-
Tennessee Warbler	-	-	-	1
Common Yellowthroat2	2	-	1	1
Northern Parula	1	-	-	-
Yellow Warbler	1	-	-	-
Prairie Warbler	-	1	-	-
Northern Cardinal	2	-	1	-
Painted Bunting	1	-	-	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	18	9	27
# of Recaptures	12	10	22
# of Species	14	8	18
Effort (net-hours)	104.4	94.3	198.7
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	27.8	20.1	24.7
# of Nets	30	23	-

2020 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	3,089	1674	4,763
# of Recaptures	619	163	782
# of Species	59	62	75
Effort (net-hours)	7,101.96	4,350.2	11,452.16
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	52.2	42.3	48.4
# of Days	57	46	-

 

Banding Staff

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