Like Shoes, House Finches Seem to Come In Pairs

 Captain Sams:

We had a pretty slow day at Captain Sams, with a total of 29 birds. A few of these feathery friends included a recap Brown Thrasher, a recap hatch-year White-crowned Sparrow, and a recap White-throated Sparrow. Our new birds of the day only consisted of three species. We had one Hermit Thrush and one Swamp Sparrow, and unsurprisingly, 12 Yellow-rumped Warblers. Without many birds visiting, we had plenty of time for some net repairs. What will tomorrow bring? Time will tell.

-Brittany

Little Bear:

The crew at Little Bear was surprised by warmer temperatures and wet conditions as we opened our nets. The day was slow with 32 birds captured; 23 were newly banded and the remaining 9 were recaptured. 15 Yellow-rumped Warblers were a large portion of new individuals, but 8 other species found their way into our nets today as well. Almost all are common at this time of year, like Ruby-crowned Kinglet and Orange-crowned Warbler, save for one: House Finch! It is uncommon that Little Bear captures House Finches and we were lucky enough to band two of them today. Both were hatch-year males and were caught right next to each other in the same net. 

We hope that more flocks of Yellow-rumped Warblers find our nets in the few remaining days to come. It's starting to really hit us that the end of the season is sadly fast approaching...

-Matt

Note:  All banding, marking, and sampling is being conducted under a federally authorized Bird Banding Permit issued by the U.S. Geological Survey’s BBL

Species	Captain Sams		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Eastern Phoebe	-	-	1	-
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	1	2	1	-
House Wren	-	1	1	-
Gray Catbird	-	2	1	4
Brown Thrasher	-	1	-	-
Hermit Thrush	-	2	-	-
House Finch	-	-	2	-
White-crowned Sparrow	-	1	-	-
White-throated Sparrow	-	1	-	-
Swamp Sparrow	1	-	-	-
Eastern Towhee	-	-	-	1
Orange-crowned Warbler	-	-	1	1
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)	12	5	15	1
Northern Cardinal	-	-	-	2
Painted Bunting	-	-	1	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	14	23	37
# of Recaptures	15	9	24
# of Species	9	10	15
Effort (net-hours)	165.9	131.25	297.06
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	17.5	24.4	20.5
# of Nets	32	25	57

2023 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	4238	3269	7507
# of Recaptures	1045	709	1754
# of Species	81	85	95
Effort (net-hours)	13,999.55	8,734.8	22,734.35
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	37.7	45.5	40.7
# of Days	85	73	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kristin Attinger (LB)

Brittany Holliker (CS)

Matt Hixson (LB)

Wentao Yang (CS)

Natalie Miller (CS)

Camille Blose (LB)