Nice Mix of Neotropical Migrants

We had another good day of banding today with 49 new birds and 5 recaptures of 16 different species.  We captured our first Eastern Wood-Pewee, Veery, Wilson's Warbler, and Yellow-breasted Chat of season!  This was only the 3rd Wilson's Warbler in the entire five years of banding at KIBS.  The other two were banded last fall.  Today's bird was a handsome adult (AHY) male! 



Wilson's Warbler (AHY, male)

Some YBCHs can be sexed during the fall.  Individuals with black lores are most likely males while females will have grayish lores.  

    

Hatch-year YBCHs have an eccentric 1st prebasic molt which means that will molt some primaries and secondaries but not all.  In most cases they will replace the outer primaries and inner secondaries leaving a block of unreplaced primaries and secondaries in the middle portion of the wing.  To the untrained eye, the feathers will look the same, however upon closer examination the rachis of the unreplaced feathers will be brown in comparison to the blackish rachis of the replaced feather.

There is another cold front expected to pass through South Carolina on Friday which may produce larger volumes of migrants.  

- Aaron


NEW BIRDS
1 Eastern Wood-Pewee
1 "Traill's" Flycatcher
8 Red-eyed Vireo
2 Veery
2 Northern Mockingbird
1 Northern Parula
1 Yellow Warbler
8 Prairie Warbler
1 American Redstart
9 Common Yellowthroat
7 Northern Waterthrush
2 Ovenbird
1 Wilson's Warbler
1 Yellow-breasted Chat
4 Painted Bunting

RECAPTURES
1 Northern Mockingbird
1 Common Yellowthroat
1 Northern Cardinal
2 Painted Bunting

BANDING STATS
# of Birds Banded:  49
# of Recaptures:  5
# of Species:  16
Effort:  104.0 net-hours
Capture Rate:  51.9 birds/100 net-hours
# of Nets:  20