A few migrants and an Eastern Screech-Owl

While still relatively slow, the capture rate this morning at Captain Sam's was higher than it has been for most of the past week. We had 23 new birds and 5 recaptures of 12 different species.

Migrant species made up a higher percentage of the captures than residents, and many had significant fat deposits. Most birds generally do not have high fat levels, but before and during migration they eat tremendous amounts of food and build up their fat stores in order to burn the fat as fuel during their long migratory flights. One of the three Northern Waterthrushes today was particularly ready for a long flight, as it had a fat score of 5 out of 5 and a mass of 22.3 grams, while the other two had fat scores of 2 and masses of 17.3g and 19.8g

Like yesterday, the main highlight of today was a nocturnal species: a hatch-year red morph Eastern Screech-Owl that flew into a net almost immediately after we opened it.

 -Blaine

Eastern Screech-Owl (hatch-year, sex unknown)

 

 

 

Photo by Mattie VandenBoom

New Birds
1 Eastern Screech-Owl
1 Red-eyed Vireo
1 Carolina Wren
3 Northern Waterthrush
2 Prothonotary Warbler
3 American Redstart
1 Yellow Warbler
7 Prairie Warbler
1 Yellow-breasted Chat
1 Northern Cardinal
2 Painted Bunting

Recaptures
1 Carolina Wren
1 Eastern Towhee
3 Northern Cardinal

Banding Stats
# of Birds Banded: 23
# of Recaptures: 5
# of Species: 12
Effort: 147.5 net-hours
Capture Rate: 19 birds/100 net-hours
# of nets: 25

Banding Staff
Blaine Carnes
Mattie VandenBoom
Michael Gamble