New Species for the Banding Station

We had 58 birds today from 9 species, 41 of which were new and 17 which were recaptures. While this seemed slow in comparison to the past few days, we were not without excitement. Our bird of the day was a clapper rail, our first caught at the station! Clapper rails are found in saltmarshes and mangrove along the east coast and west coast, and as far south as Brazil. Though we are near a marsh, we were very surprised to find one as far upland as our nets. Here is a video of the rail's release. The banders in this video are yelling "Up" to the rail because it flew unexpectedly and headed directly for another net. 

Clapper Rail (hatch-year, sex unknown)

NEW BIRDS
1 Clapper Rail
33 Gray Catbird
2 Common Yellowthroat
1 Western Palm Warbler
2 Swamp Sparrow
1 Indigo Bunting
1 Painted Bunting

RECAPTURES
1 White Eyed Vireo
1 House Wren
10 Gray Catbird
2 Common Yellowthroat
1 Yellow-rumped Warbler
1 Swamp Sparrow
1 Painted Bunting

BANDING STATS
# of New Birds: 41
# of Recaptures: 17
# of Species: 9
Effort: 130.18
Capture Rate: 44.55
# of Nets: 23

BANDING STAFF
Aaron Given
Mattie VandenBoom
William Oakley
Libby Natola