It was another slow day at Captain Sam’s with 38 new birds and 18 recaptures, comprised of 13 species. At this point in the season we often rely on Yellow-rumped Warblers to boost our numbers and they accounted for over 70 percent of the new birds banded today.
The highlight of the morning was our first of the season White-throated Sparrow. White-throated Sparrows come in two different color morphs, a white stripe morph and a tan stripe morph. The color morphs are not related to age, sex, or regional differences, though there does seem to be behavioral differences and even a slight size difference between the two color morphs. The white stripe morph tends to be more aggressive, slightly larger, and is the more dominating of the two morphs. During breeding season, mated pairs are often comprised of one from each of the color morphs. This pairing leads to a nest with half the offspring having white stripes and the other half having tan stripes. The individual we banded today was a nice example of the white stripe morph.
-Mattie
 |
| White-throated Sparrow (after hatch year) |
Little Bear
It was even slower today at Little Bear, with overcast and drizzly conditions. We managed to band 18 new individuals and recapture 4 birds of 6 species. Like at Captain Sam's Yellow-Rumps dominated the catch with 8 new birds banded.
We hope that the coming cold front this weekend will push down some more birds into Kiawah and we'll see an increase activity and diversity at both sites.
-Nancy
| Species | Captain Sam's | Little Bear | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New | Recaps | New | Recaps | |
| Eastern Phoebe | 1 | - | - | - |
| White-eyed Vireo | - | 1 | - | - |
| Carolina Wren | - | 2 | - | - |
| Ruby-crowned Kinglet | 1 | - | - | - |
| Hermit Thrush | - | 1 | 1 | - |
| Gray Catbird | 2 | 8 | 6 | 3 |
| Common Yellowthroat | - | 2 | - | - |
| Yellow-rumped Warbler | 27 | 1 | 8 | - |
| Song Sparrow | 1 | - | 1 | - |
| Swamp Sparrow | 4 | - | 2 | - |
| White-throated Sparrow | 1 | - | - | - |
| Northern Cardinal | - | 2 | - | 1 |
| Indigo Bunting | 1 | - | - | - |
| Banding Stats | Captain Sam's | Little Bear | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| # Birds Banded | 38 | 18 | 56 |
| # of Recaptures | 17 | 4 | 21 |
| # of Species | 13 | 6 | 13 |
| Effort (net-hours) | 145.0 | 72.0 | 217.0 |
| Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) | 37.9 | 30.6 | 35.5 |
| Nets | 25 | 16 | 41 |
Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Mattie VandenBoom (CS)
Chris Snook (LB)
Nancy Raginski (LB)
Sean McElaney (CS)
Casey Weissburg (LB)
Michael Gamble (CS)
Ryan Donnelly (CS)
