Fledgling Friday

CAPTAIN SAMS

Today was another slow but steady day banding at Captain Sams. We banded 27 birds and had 9 recaptures, for a total of 36 birds from 12 species. It was a Northern Waterthrush kind of day, with them making up 17 of our 36 birds! While we have been getting a lot of hatch year birds of many species (Northern Cardinals, Painted Buntings, Carolina Chickadees), all but two of the Northern Waterthrushes we banded today were adults. At the end of the day, we were surprised with a quickly incoming storm that was forecasted to miss us, but resulted in the skies opening just as we (luckily) finished closing the station. The weather is looking rainy for the morning, but fingers crossed that it clears up!

- Camille 

Northern Waterthrush

LITTLE BEAR

Today was our first day banding at Little Bear. The trails were full of water (thanks to the high tides) and the air was full of mosquitos, but we still had a nice day. We banded 36 birds and had 3 recaptures for a total of 39 birds of 12 species. As expected for late August, our most commonly caught birds were species that breed here. Of the nine Painted Buntings we caught, seven of them were born this summer (what we refer to as hatch year). A couple of them were so young they must have just left the nest! All eight of the Carolina Wrens we banded were also hatch years. The juveniles are out and about in force and we'll probably see those individuals a few more times as they learn their way around the dunes. Besides the breeding birds, we did have a few nice surprises including a Mourning Dove, Northern Parula, Yellow Warbler, and Chuck-will's-widow. Any nightjar capture is amazing, but the Chuck-will's-widow was especially exciting for me since I've only seen Eastern Whip-poor-will and Common Nighthawk before. I can't wait to get back out there and see what else we will catch! 

-Liz

Chuck-will's-widow, second year male (Very exciting way to start the morning!)

Species	Captain Sams		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
MODO	-	-	1	-
YBCU	-	1	-	-
CWWI	-	-	1	-
DOWO	-	1	-	-
WEVI	-	-	1	-
REVI	1	-	-	-
CACH	-	2	3	-
CARW	-	1	8	1
EATO	-	-	1	-
NOWA	17	-	4	-
PROW	1	-	-	-
COYE	1	-	-	-
AMRE	1	-	-	-
NOPA	-	-	1	-
YEWA	2	-	1	-
PRAW	-	-	3	-
NOCA	1	1	3	-
PABU	3	3	9	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	27	36	63
# of Recaptures	9	3	12
# of Species	12	12	18
Effort (net-hours)	168	112	280
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	21.4	34.8	26.8
# of Nets	32	28	60

2025 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	172	36	208
# of Recaptures	44	3	47
# of Species	23	12	27
Effort (net-hours)	1045.8	112	1157.8
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	20.7	34.8	22.0
# of Days	8	1	8

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (LB)

Michael Gamble (CS)

Liz Held (LB)

Arden Schneider (LB)

Camille Beckwith (CS)

Jeremiah Sullivan (CS)

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