The 2015 fall migration banding season will begin tomorrow, August 15th. We are looking forward to another great season at KIBS. This year we will be operating at two separate banding sites; one at each end of the island. The original site located at the west end of Kiawah will begin its 7th fall season tomorrow. We will be running 25 mist nets every day until November 30th. The new site is located at the far eastern end of Kiawah on Little Bear Island. Little Bear Island is a long narrow strip of high ground that borders the Atlantic Ocean/Stono River Inlet and the main part of Kiawah Island. It is separated from the main part of Kiawah by a tidal creek and saltmarsh. The vegetation is scrubby and dense with dune ridges, high marsh, and some scattered "trees". The Little Bear Site will operate from September 1st through mid-November. We will only be running 10-12 mist nets during this first year. It will be interesting to see how birds use this end of the island during migration.
We will have a great team working at KIBS this year! Most of the banding assistants will arrive during the week of August 22-29. I will update the "Staff" page in the coming weeks with everybody's profile. I am happy to have Mattie VandenBoom returning for her 3rd fall season! I'd like to welcome Chris Snook (who will be heading up the site at Little Bear Island), Casey Weissburg, Sean McElaney, Michael Gamble, and Nancy Raginski to Kiawah Island! A big thanks to Ryan Donnelly for helping me the last couple weeks clear net lanes and put up the mist nets. Ryan will hopefully be volunteering with us regularly during the banding season as well.
Any guesses what the first bird of the season will be?
-Aaron
Brown Thrasher for first bird,
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We heard several thrashers around the nets today but the first bird captured this morning was a Carolina Chickadee.
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