CAPTAIN SAMS
It's been a couple of weeks since I have heard so many bird calls overhead while opening up the nets in the dark this morning. Usually that translates into a busy morning and today was no exception as we banded 137 new birds and had 13 recaptures of 18 species.
The highlight of the day was Field Sparrow. It has been a couple of years since Captain Sams has banded a Field Sparrow so it was nice to have one visit the nets this year. See Little Bear below for more info on Field Sparrows.
Today marked a shift from the second phase of migration banding to the third and final phase. These are not official phases but ones that I simply made up forthe purpose of KIBS. The first phase starts in mid to late August and commences with the arrival of Common Yellowthroats (our most commonly banded species). The "Yellowthroat Season" lasts until mid-October and overlaps slightly with the "Catbird Season" which starts around the 1st of October and goes through the end of October. "Yellow-rump Season" generally starts during the last week of October and continues through the end of November. During "Common Yellowthroat Season" loads of Common Yellowthroats migrate through as well as early neotropical migrants such as Prairie Warblers, American Redstarts, Yellow Warblers, and Red-eyed Vireos. We see our great diversity of species during "Catbird Season" with a wide variety of warblers, thrushes, vireos, buntings, and of course, lots of Gray Catbirds. The later migrants or "winter birds" fall within "Yellow-rump Season". Yellow-rumped Warblers dominate this time of year but this is also the when we start to see sparrows, kinglets, Eastern Phoebes, Hermit Thrushes and Orange-crowned Warblers. Many individuals of these species will over-winter in our area while many more will continue on to points south of us.
-Aaron
LITTLE BEAR
Had a bit of a push today with 77 birds captured. This included some classic winter birds of the eastern United States like White-throated Sparrow, both Ruby and Golden-crowned Kinglets, Hermit Thrushes and Myrtle Warblers. One particularly exciting species that we had today was a lovely little Field Sparrow caught late in the morning.
Beautiful little hatch-year Field Sparrow! Note the pink bill which is a distinctive field mark for this species.
Field Sparrows are beautiful little sparrows of scrublands and brushy areas throughout much of eastern North America, conditions often found in early successional habitats. This has lead to these sparrows sharing the fate of many species of open-country birds in North America in that they have thrived in abandoned pastures and agricultural fields, but as time passes and forest cover increases are eventually pushed out of a habitat. Nevertheless, Field Sparrows can still be found in healthy numbers in many places throughout the nation.
Historically the habitats preferred by birds like Field Sparrows have been the product of fire, and as such somewhat ephemeral and often separated by miles of unsuitable habitat. While birds, and for that matter many animals, often have some form of dispersal that prevents inbreeding (e.g. female Black-billed Magpies leaving their natal grounds for more distant territories or male ducks following the female to her breeding grounds from a common wintering area), I suspect the dispersal method of Field Sparrows aids also in taking advantage of new habitats. Older birds are typically faithful to the locals they have previously bred in, young birds generally do not come back, presumably establishing their own territories in new places opened up for the feathered pioneers by lightning strike or the hand of man.
We had one other guest today. Not a bird, and not in the nets but spotted by Liz sleeping alongside the trail in a shrub only a few feet off the ground.
Eastern Red Bat hanging out by trail. Look at those little feet!
This is an Eastern Red Bat. These are one of three species of tree bat in North America, the others being the beautiful Silver-haired Bat and the Hoary Bat. This is significant for a couple of reasons, first that these bats are far more fecund than many other bats; routines having two, and sometimes as many as five pups compared to the single pups reared by most bat mothers, and second that these three species are all migratory. Eastern Red Bats breed throughout eastern North America from southern Canada to the Gulf and northern Mexico, and more northerly populations will use the same routes as birds to travel to winter in the southeast of our nation.
Seeing this bat was a real treat and I am exceptionally grateful for how tolerant she was of us intruding every 30-40 minutes on her rest as we made our rounds and stopped to admire her. Hopefully she is able to find plenty of the moths and beetles this species prefers for however long she will stay with us.
-Jeremiah
| Species | Captain Sams | Little Bear | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New | Recaps | New | Recaps | |
Eastern Phoebe | 7 | - | 5 | - |
Golden-crowned Kinglet | - | - | 2 | - |
Ruby-crowned Kinglet | 18 | - | 8 | 1 |
House Wren | - | - | 1 | - |
Marsh Wren | 1 | - | - | - |
Gray Catbird | 10 | 8 | 7 | 12 |
Northern Mockingbird | - | - | - | 1 |
Hermit Thrush | 2 | - | 5 | - |
Field Sparrow | 1 | - | 1 | - |
White-throated Sparrow | 2 | - | 3 | - |
Song Sparrow | 13 | - | 5 | - |
Lincoln's Sparrow | - | 1 | - | - |
Swamp Sparrow | 15 | 1 | - | - |
Eastern Towhee | - | - | - | 1 |
Orange-crowned Warbler | 3 | - | 2 | - |
Common Yellowthroat | 10 | 1 | 2 | - |
American Redstart | - | - | - | 1 |
Cape May Warbler | 1 | - | - | - |
Northern Parula | - | - | 3 | - |
| Black-throated Blue Warbler | 1 | - | - | - |
| Palm Warbler (Western) | 7 | - | 1 | - |
| Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) | 45 | - | 11 | 1 |
| Northern Cardinal | - | - | - | 2 |
| Indigo Bunting | 1 | - | 1 | - |
| Painted Bunting | - | 2 | 1 | - |
| Today's Banding Stats | Captain Sams | Little Bear | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| # Birds Banded | 137 | 58 | 195 |
| # of Recaptures | 13 | 19 | 32 |
| # of Species | 18 | 20 | 25 |
| Effort (net-hours) | 200.0 | 156.8 | 356.8 |
| Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) | 75.0 | 49.1 | 63.6 |
| # of Nets | 32 | 28 | - |
| 2025 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats | Captain Sams | Little Bear | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| # Birds Banded | 4,706 | 3,280 | 7,983 |
| # of Recaptures | 963 | 882 | 1,845 |
| # of Species | 90 | 90 | 104 |
| Effort (net-hours) | 11,838.1 | 8371.1 | 20,209.2 |
| Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) | 47.9 | 49.7 | 48.6 |
| # of Days | 75 | 65 |
Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)Michael Gamble (CS)
Liz Held (LB)
Arden Schneider (LB)
Jeremiah Sullivan (LB)
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.
