Last day for the seasonal crew

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! 

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.

Finally a BHVI for Little Bear!

 CAPTAIN SAMS 

Pleasant morning over at Captain Sam's where we banded 19 birds and put out 20 new bands for a total of 49 birds of 15 species today.

Song Sparrow from earlier this season. Note the strong central breast spot which can be helpful in distinguishing the species from other North American Sparrows.

One of the species we had today was a recap Song Sparrow. Song Sparrows are beautiful little sparrows of brushy edges and thickets that can be found almost anywhere in North America at one season or another and can require as little as half an acre to construct a territory and raise their broods. Interestingly, this species shows a delightful degree of variation depending on where it lives in both song and physical appearance. Songs appear to be learned early in life from surrounding males, with one study indicating that Song Sparrows learn 90% of their repertoires within the first 90 days of life. This means that over their broad range Song Sparrows can have a variety of "accents;" which has led, in my experience, to having to reacquaint myself with this species depending on my travels.

In regards to physical appearance Cornell's Birds of the World website states that this is one of the most polytypic species in North America, and perhaps the world. 38 subspecies are sometimes recognized though the minimal mentioned on Birds of the World was 24. These can vary from small, light colored birds in the American Southwest or California's Channel Islands to large, dark, towhee-sized birds in Aleutian Islands of Alaska. While these differences can be stark, with great size variation and a variety of red, brown, gray, and tan hues being commonplace, it is important to remember that many of these populations are nearly indistinguishable and these changes often occur gradually over the bird's range and are therefore less stark than might otherwise be proposed. Further confounding the situations is that many populations are migratory while others are year-round resulting in mixed populations in some areas in migration and winter.

One lovely fact about this species is that it truly does live up to its name in that it is one of the first birds to herald the springtime with its song. This can be as early as January or February and will be heard increasingly often as northern birds make their way to their summer homes.

With the close of the season for us techs tomorrow I will soon be on my own migration to the Atlantic coast of Florida to spend the winter capturing till springtime. This has been a wonderful season on Kiawah and I am grateful for my time here. I hope to carry the skills I gained here to other places, particularly once the Song Sparrows start singing and I head north with them.

Goodbye and thank you for reading.

Sincerely,

Jeremiah

 

LITTLE BEAR

We ended up getting a decent amount of birds out at Little Bear today. We banded 22 birds and processed 29 recaps for a total of 51 birds of 14 different species. This is a both a better ratio of new birds to recaps and better species diversity than the past handful of days. Lower wind speeds and fewer gusts led to birds being more active around the site, meaning more birds in the net and also more bird activity to watch and appreciate in between net runs. 

The increased diversity led to some interesting captures today: a recap Sharp-shinned Hawk, another American Robin, a lovely female Eastern Towhee, and Little Bear's first Blue-headed Vireo of the season! I've been hoping we would see them since Captain Sam's started catching them a couple weeks ago. There is just one more day of banding left for Little Bear, and we hope we can add at least one more new species to our season list. 

-Liz

Blue-headed Vireo, hatch-year unknown sex

Eastern Towhee, after-hatch-year female

Species	Captain Sams		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Sharp-shinned Hawk	-	-	-	1
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker	1	-	-	-
Eastern Phoebe	-	-	1	-
Blue-headed Vireo	-	-	1	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	1	-	1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	2	2	3	-
House Wren	1	1	-	-
Carolina Wren	-	1	-	1
Gray Catbird	1	9	3	21
Hermit Thrush	1	1	-	1
White-throated Sparrow	1	-	-	-
Song Sparrow	-	1	1	-
Swamp Sparrow	-	-	3	-
Yellow-breasted Chat	-	1	-	-
American Robin		-	1	-
Orange-crowned Warbler	2	1	-	-
Myrtle Warbler	9	-	8	3
Painted Bunting	-	-	1	-
Northern Cardinal	-	1	-	-
Grasshopper Sparrow	-	1	-	-
	-	-	-	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	19	22	41
# of Recaptures	20	29	49
# of Species	15	14	-
Effort (net-hours)	208	168	-
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	23.6	30.4	-
# of Nets	32	28	-

2025 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	5,152	3,485	-
# of Recaptures	1,141	1,038	-
# of Species	92	93	-
Effort (net-hours)	14,053.4	10,334.2	-
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	44.8	43.8	-
# of Days	87	76

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Michael Gamble (CS)

Liz Held (LB)

Camille Beckwith (LB)

Jeremiah Sullivan (CS)

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.