Crisp Autumn Cold Front

 Captain Sam's:

Last night's north winds brought us cooler temps and some new birds for the season: Golden-crowned Kinglet, Winter Wren, and Orange-crowned Warbler! It was not as busy as we anticipated, and we were still drowning in Gray Catbirds, but we had a great day and were excited to see the new species. Golden-crowned Kinglets were flitting right above our heads at the banding station, as they were looking for food to replenish their fat stores.

Hatch-year female Orange-crowned Warbler

After hatch-year female Golden-crowned Kinglet

Hatch-year Winter Wren

Thanks to David, Amy, and Aidan for all of your help today!

I'm off to Little Bear tomorrow - hopefully we have another great day up there again!

-Kandace

Little Bear:

Today was a great day! We ended up with a total of 137 birds! Even though the wind was a little on the high end at Little bear, we still pushed through and got two new birds for our site! A Golden-crowned Kinglet and a Song Sparrow! We also added two more Wood Thrushes as well! We usually only get one for the site but today made it three for Little Bear. We did add another male Bobolink to our list as well! This was a first in the hand for Ben and it was really exciting to see him hold this bird! I didn't get any good pictures of the FOS but I did get a good comparison photo of the Palm Warblers today. Pictured below is the difference between a Yellow Palm Warbler and a Western Palm Warbler. Both are a Palm Warbler but as shown below, the right bird is more "yellow" than the other bird. Even the underside of the bird has yellow instead of just the tail coverts. 

"Western Palm Warbler" on the left and "Yellow Palm Warbler" on the right

I also managed to snag a great photo of a Gray Hairstreak that was hanging out on the Golden Rods at Little Bear. This has been the largest number of butterflies I have seen in a given area! Butterflies and birds are on the move with migration I'd say.

Gray Hairstreak

-Kristin

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Yellow-billed Cuckoo	1	-	3	-
Eastern Phoebe	9	-	8	-
Blue-headed Vireo	1	-	-	-
Red-eyed Vireo	-	-	1	-
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	2	-	6	-
Golden-crowned Kinglet	1	-	1	-
House Wren	3	1	3	1
Winter Wren	1	-	-	-
Swainson's Thrush	-	-	1	-
Gray-cheeked Thrush	1	-	-	-
Wood Thrush	-	-	2	-
Gray Catbird	44	22	42	6
Brown Thrasher	-	-	1	-
Northern Mockingbird	-	-	-	1
Eastern Towhee	3	-	2	-
Song Sparrow	-	-	1	-
Swamp Sparrow	2	-	5	-
Bobolink	-	-	1	-
Northern Waterthrush	2	-	-	-
Orange-crowned Warbler	2	-	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	3	-	25	2
American Redstart	2	1	1	-
Northern Parula	1	-	-	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	3	-	3	-
Palm Warbler (western)	8	-	12	-
Palm Warbler (eastern/yellow)	-	-	1	-
Yellow-rumped Warbler (myrtle)	3	-	1	-
Prairie Warbler	1	-	-	-
Northern Cardinal	2	1	-	1
Indigo Bunting	1	-	1	-
Painted Bunting	2	2	2	3

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	98	123	221
# of Recaptures	27	14	41
# of Species	23	23	30
Effort (net-hours)	187.5	101.5	289
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	66.7	135	90.65
# of Nets	30	23	53

2021 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	3,104	2,226	5,330
# of Recaptures	509	277	786
# of Species	75	69	85
Effort (net-hours)	8,319.7	5,759.1	14,078.8
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	43.4	43.5	43.4
# of Days	60	55	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kandace Glanville (CS)

Ben Stalheim (LB)

Nate Watkins (CS)

Josh Lefever (LB)

Kristin Attinger (LB)