Kiawah Island Banding Station

 CAPTAIN SAMS 

The winter birds are trickling in and the mornings are getting cooler. We captured 40 new birds and 25 recaptures of 22 species. The highlight of the morning was a first-of-season Clay-colored Sparrow for Captain Sam's. 

Clay-colored sparrows breed across the northern Great Plains and winter in south Texas and Mexico. I would see many Clay-colored Sparrows when I worked in central Texas as they migrated through the area in the spring. They are much more uncommon along the east coast during migration but a handful of individuals show up on both coasts each fall. There have been a few sightings so far this fall in the Charleston area and Little Bear has already captured two individuals. 

Clay-colored Sparrow (hatch year, unknown sex)

LITTLE BEAR

Had a quiet, but interesting day over at Little Bear with highlights including a couple of Orange-crowned Warblers, a Tennessee Warblers, a beautiful little flock of Yellow-rumped Warblers (before we only had individuals, or perhaps a couple of birds!) and a beautiful Yellow-bellied Sapsucker!

Second-year female Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Note how the red only covers the crown indicating a female as opposed to a male bird.

Sapsuckers are a distinct and delightful group of four woodpecker species all in the genus Sphyrapicus. Along the Pacific coast you have the fiery Red-breasted Sapsucker, in the Mountain West the Red-naped and Williamson’s Sapsuckers, and in the East and the Northwoods the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.

Most woodpeckers have barbs on the tips of their bills, but sapsuckers have a brush-tipped tongue that is used to lap up sap that is harvested from small cuts, or ‘wells,’ in the trunk of a tree. Often these wells appear in a dense, evenly spaced, pattern of small holes filled into larger branches or the trunks of trees. In the East, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds will also take advantage of these wells as a food source and some will even follow sapsuckers around to access their wells!

With this first flock of Yellow-rumped Warblers we are starting to wonder when the big pushes of this species comes through. Until then definitely enjoying the species diversity we have been seeing.

-Jeremiah 

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Yellow-billed Cuckoo	1	-	-	-
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker	-	-	1	-
Downy Woodpecker	-	-	-	1
Eastern Phoebe	2	-	-	-
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	2	-	-	-
House Wren	-	-	1	-
Carolina Wren	-	-	-	1
Carolina Chickadee	-	-	-	1
Gray Catbird	8	19	18	31
Swainson's Thrush	2	-	-	-
Clay-colored Sparrow	1	-	-	-
Song Sparrow	1	1	-	-
Swamp Sparrow	2	-	2	1
Northern Waterthrush	1	-	1	1
Black-and-white Warbler	1	-	-	-
Tennessee Warbler	3	-	1	-
Orange-crowned Warbler	1	-	2	-
Common Yellowthroat	1	1	1	-
American Redstart	1	-	1	-
Cape May Warbler	1	-	1	-
Northern Parula	1	-	1	-
Palm Warbler (Western)	5	-	2	-
Pine Warbler	1	-	-	-
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)	-	-	9	-
Northern Cardinal	1	-	-	-
Indigo Bunting	1	-	-	-
Painted Bunting	3	3	2	2

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	40	43	83
# of Recaptures	25	37	62
# of Species	22	16	27
Effort (net-hours)	176.8	162.4	339.2
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	36.8	49.2	42.7
# of Nets	32	28	60

2025 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	4,209	3,111	7,320
# of Recaptures	858	761	1,619
# of Species	85	81	98
Effort (net-hours)	10,634.7	7,867.9	18,502.6
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	47.6	49.2	48.3
# of Days	67	58

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Michael Gamble (CS)

Liz Held (LB)

Arden Schneider (LB)

Camille Beckwith (CS)

Jeremiah Sullivan (LB)

Keegan Foster (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.