September 15, 2016

Captain Sam's
We had an unexpectedly good morning out at Captain Sam's today with 30 new birds and 9 recaptures of 12 species. It was pretty windy and we had to keep some nets closed so we were surprised to catch as many birds as we did. We caught our 4th Acadian Flycatcher of the season, and they have all been caught at Captain Sam's. We also caught another Ruby-throated Hummingbird, which has always been one of my favorites. There are so many interesting facts about hummingbirds that never cease to amaze me. These little birds can beat their wings about 53 times per second and even higher during courtship displays. While perched, they take about 150 breaths per minute. At rest, they have a heart rate of 250 beats per minute, which increases to about 1200 while feeding. They are attracted to red and orange flowers and use their tongues to reach the nectar, taking about 13 laps per second. Ruby-throated hummingbirds start migrating as early as the beginning of August and will swarm feeders and flowers in the fall to stock up on fat for their long journey, almost doubling their weight. They migrate to Mexico and Central America, some taking a non-stop migration route across the Gulf of Mexico (about 500 miles), which they do alone.

We also had two old recaps from previous years, both in the new net we added recently. One was a Carolina Chickadee banded as a hatch-year on August 15, 2015. It was actually the first size 0 band we used last fall. The other recapture was a female Painted Bunting banded as a second-year on September 7, 2011, making her 6 years old. We also recaptured her twice in 2013 and another four times last year.

-Michael

Little Bear

Despite being fairly flooded and slightly windy Little Bear was able to open the nets today. When we arrived there were places between the net lanes where the water was flooding our muck boots. A couple of the nets couldn't be opened right away but eventually we were able to open all of them. We had a total of 22 birds including a beautiful male Painted Bunting. Lately most of the buntings we have captured have been heavily molting.

-Collette

Male Painted Bunting

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Ruby-throated Hummingbird	x	-	-	-
Acadian Flycatcher	1	-	-	-
"Traill's" Flycatcher	-	-	1	1
Red-eyed Vireo	7	2	1	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	1	-	-
Carolina Wren	-	-	-	1
Northern Mockingbird	-	-	-	1
Ovenbird	1	1	1	-
Northern Waterthrush	1	-	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	14	1	5	2
American Redstart	2	-	2	-
Yellow Warbler	-	-	2	-
Palm Warbler (Western)	1	-	-	-
Prairie Warbler	2	2	1	-
Northern Cardinal	-	1	-	1
Painted Bunting	-	1	-	2

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	29	14	43
# of Recaptures	9	8	17
# of Species	11	12	15
Effort (net-hours)	117.3	52.5	159.2
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	32.4	41.9	37.7
Nets	23	20	43

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Blaine Carnes (LB)
Mattie VandenBoom (CS)
Alison Nevins (LB)
Col Lauzau (LB)
Michael Gamble (CS)
Michael Rodgers (LB)
Ryan Donnelly (CS)