Post-Hermine

During the storm yesterday we had originally decided to take this morning off and put the nets back up in both sites this afternoon, but the overnight wind forecasts called for a shift to the west and a slow drop in speed to about 7 mph by sunrise and several of us thought it might be a good idea to get out early, set up, and see if the storm blew in any birds.

Because Captain Sam's has more nets it takes longer to set up than Little Bear, and it was also likely that it would have more in the way of downed vegetation, so six of us headed out to Little Bear at 4:50 AM with the goal of having some of the site ready by the standard opening time of a half-hour prior to sunrise. There was some debris in the net-lanes but the site was in great shape overall and we managed to open all 17 nets on time.

The result was 18 new birds and 6 recaptures of 12 different species. It wasn't quite the big wind-blown flocks of migrants that we had been hoping for, but captures stayed relatively steady throughout the morning and the temperature was about 15 degrees cooler than it has been for most of the season so far. This may have been the first day where no one was drenched with sweat by closing time. Aside from the weather our highlight was Little Bear's first Hooded Warbler of the season.

After a break for lunch the crew went over to Captain Sam's and started putting the nets back up there. Unlike the more open habitat at Little Bear, Captain Sam's had quite a few broken myrtle branches hanging down into the trails, and one net-lane may need some chainsaw work before we can get a net back in it. We'll still be able to run the site tomorrow though.

--Blaine

Hooded Warbler (Hatch-year, female)

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Common Ground-Dove	-	-	-	1
Traill's Flycatcher	-	-	1	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	-	-	1
Carolina Wren	-	-	-	3
Ovenbird	-	-	1	-
Northern Waterthrush	-	-	2	-
Common Yellowthroat	-	-	1	-
Hooded Warbler	-	-	1	-
American Redstart	-	-	4	-
Prairie Warbler	-	-	2	-
Northern Cardinal	-	-	2	-
Painted Bunting	-	-	4	1

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	-	18	18
# of Recaptures	-	6	6
# of Species	-	12	12
Effort (net-hours)	-	68.0	68.0
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	-	35.3	35.3
Nets	-	17	17

Banding Staff
Mattie VandenBoom
Blaine Carnes
Michael Gamble
Alison Nevins
Col Lauzau
Michael Rodgers