atLEAST We Had Fun

Captain Sam's:

Dew-covered vegetation and a crisp atmosphere brought a new feeling to the morning. With that, we heard quite a few chips and calls as we were opening nets. Among them, an Eastern-Screech Owl and Chuck-Will's-Widow were around, but unfortunately never caught in the nets. We did capture a fair amount of birds with surprising diversity. We caught 32 birds of 13 species and are hoping for better things in the near future. 

One new bird for the season was a Least Flycatcher! This "cute" flycatcher was caught during a relatively slow net run and allowed us to really examine the bird in detail. We measured this small flycatcher and noticed emargination on its 6th primary. Emargination in a feather is where the thickness of the web noticeably thins near the point. On "Traill's" Flycatchers we don't see that, and also notice a much larger size than this bird. Also, notice the eyering, grayer, shorter primary projection, and overall "cute" look to this bird.

Some other fun catches were a few hatch-year female Black-and-white Warblers, a hatch-year Northern Mockingbird, and a hatch-year female Black-throated Blue Warbler. Overall another great day of banding and learning.

-Ben

Little Bear:

This morning was an average September 'slow day' with 23 birds processed, predominantly Common Yellowthroats and Northern Waterthrushes. We had a big temperature swing during our 4 hours of banding, from a very pleasant 68 at sunrise to almost 90 by the time we started closing our nets. Without anything unusual or first of season birds to report on today, the biggest highlight was taking in another one of Little Bear's illustrious sunrises.

Sunrise at the northeast tip of Kiawah Island

-Josh

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Downy Woodpecker	-	1	-	-
Least Flycatcher	1	-	-	-
White-eyed Vireo	1	2	-	-
Red-eyed Vireo	4	-	2	-
Carolina Chickadee	1	-	-	-
Northern Mockingbird	1	-	-	-
Northern Waterthrush	3	1	7	-
Black-and-white Warbler	2	-	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	5	-	6	1
American Redstart	1	1	-	-
Yellow Warbler	-	-	1	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	1	-	-	-
Prairie Warbler	3	-	2	-
Painted Bunting	4	-	2	1

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	27	21	48
# of Recaptures	5	2	7
# of Species	13	7	14
Effort (net-hours)	142.5	96.6	239.1
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	22.5	23.8	23.0
# of Nets	30	23	-

2021 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	721	430	1151
# of Recaptures	145	59	204
# of Species	40	38	47
Effort (net-hours)	3674.5	2187.9	5862.4
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	23.6	22.4	23.1
# of Days	27	22	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kristin Attinger (CS)

Kandace Glanville (CS)

Ben Stalheim (CS)

Nate Watkins (LB)

Josh Lefever (LB)