CAPTAIN SAMS
Today was the last day for us seasonal banders, and it was definitely bittersweet. We had a great day at Captain Sams, with 92 new birds and 12 recaptures. The Yellow-rumped Warblers seem to have finally started arriving in force, which gave us some excitement! The last new bird banded for the day, and thus my fall season, was an after hatch year Gray Catbird, which seems like a very fitting last bird!
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| Gray Catbird (after hatch year, unknown sex) |
Once we finished banding for the day, we headed over to meet the rest of the crew at Little Bear and help them finish up closing the station (though they were very fast and were practically done by the time we got to them). It was weird and definitely a bit sad seeing the empty net lanes and banding area. Aaron and Michael will continue banding at Captain Sams daily through the end of the month, and I'm curious to see what else they will get! I enjoyed my time banding on Kiawah, and I'm definitely going to miss the amazing birds and gorgeous island!
- Camille
LITTLE BEAR
Yes, today was the last day of banding at Little Bear for the season. Unlike Captain Sam's, we had a very slow day (I guess all of the Yellow-rumps were hanging out somewhere else). We ran the station for about 4 hours before we started shutting down and ended up with 21 birds, 10 new and 11 recaptures of 9 different species.
I think we had a pretty great season out at Little Bear! We did not beat the record for birds banded, but we got really close! We were waiting for the push of Yellow-rumped Warblers at the end of the season to boost our numbers a little bit, but they never came. Even though we didn't beat the record, we still banded a lot of birds and I think we may have had the highest amount of recaptures so far in Little Bear's history (thank you catbirds!). There will be more stats for the season in the fall summary after banding at Captain Sam's has wrapped up.
For me, there were so many highlights from the season. While I've worked at other places in the east, I have mostly been up north so I really appreciated seeing/banding the species that stick to the south. This included Prairie Warbler, White-eyed Vireo, Worm-eating Warbler, Swainson's Warbler, and Painted Buntings to name a few. We were also lucky to catch a few wading birds this season, which was definitely a first for me. I loved being able to see and handle the Tricolored Heron, Yellow-crowned Night-heron, and White Ibis. The day where we caught the two Belted Kingfishers is also at the top of my list of favorite memories from the season. A few more of my favorites were the Dickcissel, Bobolink, Common Ground Dove, Eastern Whip-poor-will, and Sora. The list could go on as there were a lot of good birds this season, haha! I really enjoyed getting to know and work with this team and I'm grateful for the opportunity to work for KIBS this season.
-Liz
| Species | Captain Sams | Little Bear | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New | Recaps | New | Recaps | |
Eastern Phoebe | 1 | - | - | - |
Carolina Chickadee | - | 1 | - | - |
Ruby-crowned Kinglet | 8 | 1 | 3 | - |
Carolina Wren | - | - | - | 1 |
Gray Catbird | 3 | 5 | - | 8 |
Hermit Thrush | 5 | 1 | 1 | - |
White-throated Sparrow | 2 | - | 1 | - |
Song Sparrow | 4 | 1 | 3 | - |
Swamp Sparrow | 4 | - | - | - |
Orange-crowned Warbler | 1 | - | - | - |
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) | 64 | 3 | 2 | - |
Northern Cardinal | - | - | - | 1 |
Painted Bunting | - | - | - | 1 |
| Today's Banding Stats | Captain Sams | Little Bear | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| # Birds Banded | 92 | 10 | 102 |
| # of Recaptures | 12 | 11 | 33 |
| # of Species | 10 | 9 | 13 |
| Effort (net-hours) | 184.0 | 121.8 | 305.8 |
| Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) | 56.5 | 17.2 | 44.1 |
| # of Nets | 32 | 28 | 60 |
| 2025 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats | Captain Sams | Little Bear | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| # Birds Banded | 5,244 | 3,495 | 8,739 |
| # of Recaptures | 1,153 | 1,048 | 2,201 |
| # of Species | 92 | 93 | 107 |
| Effort (net-hours) | 14,221.4 | 10,456.0 | 24,677.4 |
| Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) | 45.0 | 43.4 | 44.3 |
| # of Days | 88 | 77 |
Banding Staff
Michael Gamble (CS)
Liz Held (LB)
Camille Beckwith (CS)
Jeremiah Sullivan (LB)
Keegan Foster (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.
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