Kiawah Island Banding Station

 CAPTAIN SAMS

We dodged rain showers for much of the morning. Fortunately, it never rained hard enough or long enough for us to close down the nets. High tide the last two evenings has been exceptionally high. Both nights the tide was running over a foot above predicted cresting around 7.5ft. Because our banding area is in a tidal system, most of our low-lying nets will get flooded to some degree during any tide above 7.0 feet. Last night's tide got in pretty far and in its wake left behind a lot of muddy trails and ankle deep water in many places. Northern Waterthrushes should find our new conditions favorable so it'll be interesting to see if we see an increase in them over the next few days while the water slowly evaporates. 

-Aaron 

 

LITTLE BEAR

Little Bear also saw some rain this morning but not enough to close nets or worry about the birds. Numbers have slowed back down, we banded 7 new birds today and got 6 recaps. The high tide over the last two days left Little Bear filled with water in some spots. Some nets have over two feet of water around them so hip waiters were a necessity this morning. The tide brought some fish to our net lanes but I don't think the herons have caught on yet, or they've got better places to be. A small gator was seen again in the water under one of the nets, and Liz had some fun finding a path around a timber rattlesnake while closing nets. I went to get a look at the fella before leaving and it wasn't very stoked. Hearing the rattle of a snake you don't see can be pretty nerve wracking!

-Aiden

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Downy Woodpecker	-	1	-	-
Traill's Flycatcher	1	-	-	-
White-eyed Vireo	-	1	-	-
Red-eyed Vireo	1	-	-	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	1	-	2
Tufted Titmouse	-	-	-	1
Ovenbird	1	-	-	-
Northern Waterthrush	5	3	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	4	4	1	-
American Redstart	3	-	1	-
Yellow Warbler	-	-	1	-
Prairie Warbler	1	-	1	-
Northern Cardinal	-	-	-	1
Painted Bunting	-	-	2	2

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	16	7	23
# of Recaptures	10	6	16
# of Species	10	9	14
Effort (net-hours)	151.8	125.6	277.4
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	17.1	10.4	14.6
# of Nets	33	28	61

2026 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	535	280	815
# of Recaptures	149	99	248
# of Species	31	28	59
Effort (net-hours)	3353.8	1855.1	5208.9
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	16.0	20.4	20.4
# of Days	25	18

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Michael Gamble (CS)

Liz Held (LB)

Olivia DeMarchi (LB)

Jasmine Fu (CS)

Aiden Gifford (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.