Bountiful FOSs On This Beautiful October Day- Including Swainson's Warbler!

Captain Sam's:

    Today was a pretty incredible day at Captain Sam’s! We had a big total and caught 3 first-of-season birds! Not only that, but the species we caught were of high diversity, so it kept things fun all morning. Also, my good friend Brendan is stopping by to help for the next day or so, which has been excellent! We worked together for the last two summers in central Texas studying Black-capped Vireos. 

    Our first-of-season birds today were Wood Thrush, Scarlet Tanager, and Blue-headed Vireo; the first two I’ve never even handled before and the Vireo is the first one I’ve ever gotten to band! The Wood Thrush was a hatching year bird with a really nice greater covert molt limit, and it was much bigger in the hand than I expected! For the Scarlet Tanager, it was a hatching year male with a really cool greater covert limit. Finally, the Blue-headed Vireo was a hatching year with an A1 molt limit (a limit in the first alular feather). Since I've been studying vireos the past couple of years, I'm always excited to band a new one and hope to eventually get a close look at all the species of them.

    We also caught some other good birds for the day that we don’t see too often like Magnolia Warbler, Brown Thrasher, Gray-cheeked Thrush, and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.

We’ve reached the dew point,

Signaled by stridulation - 

The cool morning warms

- Nate 

 

Hatching year Wood Thrush

Hatching year Wood Thrush wing shot. The feathers that are bracketed in red have been replaced. The other greater covert feathers moving outward on the wing are retained juvenile feathers, the buffy tips are also a good indication of juvenile feathers.

Hatching year male Scarlet Tanager

Hatching year male Scarlet Tanager wing shot. Again the feathers that are outlined in red and the one or two greater coverts in that are pointed at are replaced feathers. The juvenile feathers are grayer and also still have buffy tips.

Hatching year Blue-headed Vireo

Little Bear:

Today was a busy morning! We caught exactly 100 birds with only 7 of them being recaptures. We added 6 new FOS for Little Bear with 1 of them being FOS for KIBS this season. We added Swamp Sparrow, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Gray-cheeked Thrush, Wood Thrush, Nashville Warbler and a late Swainson's Warbler! At least one of the sites catches a Swainson's Warbler before October, and we were getting worried that KIBS may not catch one this year. It was definitely a welcome surprise to find in the net today, and a real treat to band! Little Bear's species list is gradually catching up to Captains Sams- we only need 5 more to make it even between the sites. I'm hoping we can add a few more in the next couple days.

-Kristin

Swainson's Warbler

Swamp Sparrow

Nashville Warbler

Chestnut-sided Warbler

Gray-checked Thrush

Wood Thush

Bonus Bird! On the last net check before we closed for the day, we caught a Red-bellied Woodpecker. We only caught KIBS first ever Red-bellied Woodpecker earlier this season at Little Bear, so it was a cool surprise to come upon another one today.

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Yellow-billed Cuckoo	-	-	1	-
Red-bellied Woodpecker	-	-	1	-
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker	1	-	-	-
Downy Woodpecker	-	-	1	-
Eastern Wood-pewee	1	-	-	-
Eastern Phoebe	2	-	-	-
White-eyed Vireo	2	1	1	-
Blue-headed Vireo	1	-	-	-
Red-eyed Vireo	1	-	2	-
House Wren	4	1	4	1
Carolina Wren	-	1	-	1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	2	-	3	-
Swainson's Thrush	3	-	2	-
Gray-cheeked Thrush	1	-	1	-
Wood Thrush	1	-	1	-
Gray Catbird	46	8	40	4
Brown Thrasher	1	-	-	-
Northern Mockingbird	-	1	-	-
Swamp Sparrow	-	-	1	-
Ovenbird	1	-	2	-
Swainson's Warbler	-	-	1	-
Tennessee Warbler	-	-	1	-
Nashville Warbler	-	-	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	13	-	11	-
American Redstart	4	1	3	-
Cape May Warbler	1	-	3	-
Northern Parula	2	-	2	-
Magnolia Warbler	1	-	-	-
Chestnut-sided Warbler	-	-	1	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	20	-	6	-
Palm Warbler	4	-	3	-
Yellow-rumped Warbler (myrtle)	-	-	1	-
Scarlet Tanager	1	-	-	-
Northern Cardinal	1	-	-	-
Indigo Bunting	5	-	-	-

Painted Bunting

-

-

-

1

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	119	93	212
# of Recaptures	14	7	21
# of Species	26	26	36
Effort (net-hours)	165	135.7	300.7
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	80.6	73.7	77.5
# of Nets	30	23	53

2021 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	2870	1,934	4,804
# of Recaptures	452	243	695
# of Species	68	64	79
Effort (net-hours)	7871.55	5,428.1	13,299.65
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	42.2	40.1	41.35
# of Days	57	52	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kandace Glanville (CS)

Ben Stalheim (CS)

Nate Watkins (CS)

Josh Lefever (LB)

Kristin Attinger (LB)