Captain Sam's:
Happy first of October! This morning, we had our first 200+ bird day of the season to ring in the new month with 262 new birds and 12 recaptures. On busy days such as this one, it's often hard to find time to catch our breaths between around-the-clock net runs and banding, but it's always exciting. We caught 132 birds in just the first net run, and most of those were Gray Catbirds! If you've been following the blog over multiple years, you'll know that Catbirds are our second-most common migrant species we catch at the station (behind Common Yellowthroats), and it looks like this year will be no exception. With the 125 Catbirds banded today, we're well on our way to 2019's Catbird total of 703.
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| A typical busy day view....most of these are Catbirds (Photo:VW) |
The rest of this week is forecasted to stay busy, so we'll be seeing many more Gray Catbirds and Common Yellowthroats over the next couple of days and throughout the month of October.
- Sarah S.
Little Bear:
It was another busy day at Little Bear, with 144 total captures (140 new and only 4 recaps). Two new species dropped by LB today: a Least Flycatcher and a Gray-cheeked Thrush. This was the first Least Flycatcher this year for LB (one was captured at CS on September 21st), but the Gray-cheeked Thrush was a FOS across both sites!
Our Gray-cheeked is stopping over on Kiawah Island while on a long journey from its birthplace in Alaska or northern Canada to wintering grounds in South America. As their name suggests, Gray-cheeked thrushes can be separated from similar Catharus thrushes like Swainson’s by their grayish face, as well as lack of a prominent eye ring. Bicknell’s thrushes are very similar – and in fact were only recently recognized as a separate species from Gray-cheeked – but can be identified in the hand by their more rufous tails, chestnut backs, and shorter and more rounded wings. Our bird had a grayish brown tail and back, and its wing chord was longer than a Bicknell’s would be, so we were able to confidently identify it as a Gray-cheeked. We aged our bird as a hatch-year using molt limits in its greater coverts.
We're looking forward to more busy days heading into the weekend, which will bring more migrants and hopefully new species to Kiawah!
-Sarah M.
| Species | Captain Sam's | Little Bear | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New | Recaps | New | Recaps | |
Eastern Wood-Pewee | 2 | - | - | - |
Least Flycatcher | - | - | 1 | - |
White-eyed Vireo | 7 | 1 | 6 | - |
Red-eyed Vireo | 14 | - | 14 | - |
Carolina Chickadee | - | - | 2 | 1 |
House Wren | 2 | 1 | 2 | - |
Carolina Wren | - | - | - | - |
Veery | 5 | - | - | - |
Gray-cheeked Thrush | - | - | 1 | - |
Swainson's Thrush | 12 | - | 6 | - |
Gray Catbird | 125 | 5 | 42 | - |
Brown Thrasher | 2 | - | - | - |
Northern Mockingbird | 1 | - | - | - |
Yellow-breasted Chat | 2 | - | 1 | - |
Ovenbird | 4 | 1 | 3 | - |
Worm-eating Warbler | 1 | - | - | - |
Northern Waterthrush | 4 | - | 7 | - |
Black-and-white Warbler | 2 | - | 4 | - |
Common Yellowthroat | 22 | - | 17 | 1 |
Hooded Warbler | 2 | - | - | - |
American Redstart | 34 | - | 21 | 1 |
Magnolia Warbler | 1 | - | - | - |
Yellow Warbler | - | - | 1 | - |
Black-throated Blue Warbler | 4 | - | 2 | - |
Palm Warbler | 5 | - | 5 | - |
Prairie Warbler | 2 | - | 3 | - |
Summer Tanager | 1 | - | - | - |
Northern Cardinal | 1 | 1 | - | - |
Indigo Bunting | 5 | - | - | - |
Painted Bunting | - | - | 2 | 1 |
| Today's Banding Stats | Captain Sam's | Little Bear | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| # Birds Banded | 262 | 140 | 402 |
| # of Recaptures | 9 | 4 | 13 |
| # of Species | 24 | 20 | 30 |
| Effort (net-hours) | 161.0 | 134.9 | 295.9 |
| Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) | 168.3 | 106.7 | 140.3 |
| # of Nets | 30 | 23 | - |
| 2020 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats | Captain Sam's | Little Bear | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| # Birds Banded | 2,050 | 1,051 | 3,101 |
| # of Recaptures | 426 | 149 | 575 |
| # of Species | 48 | 53 | 61 |
| Effort (net-hours) | 5,516.21 | 3,172.45 | 8,688.66 |
| Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) | 44.9 | 37.8 | 42.3 |
| # of Days | 46 | 34 | - |
Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Sarah Mueller (LB)
Sarah Stewart (CS)
Vincent Weber (CS)
Dan Errichetti (CS)
Kristin Attinger (LB)
Josh Lefever (LB)
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