Big day for both stations

Captain Sam's

It turned out to be a pretty big day out at Captain Sam's this morning, which we expected since a cold front moved in over night. In preparation, we asked for volunteers and had Chris Snook, Kristen Oliver, and David McClean come out to help. With that many hands on deck, we had no problem with the 155 new birds banded today and 15 recaptures. We also had the highest species diversity we've had all season with 33 species captures today! The main highlights were a Yellow-throated Warbler, Bay-breasted Warbler, Nashville Warbler, Brown Creeper, and Red-breasted Nuthatch. We've had a Bay-breasted Warbler already at Captain Sam's but we usually don't catch but one if any. The Yellow-throated Warbler was a first-of-the season for Captain Sam's (Little Bear had one earlier in the week) and the Brown Creeper and Red-breasted Nuthatch are firsts-of-the season between both sites. We also started to catch some first-of-the season birds that winter in South Carolina, including Hermit Thrush, Orange-crowned Warbler, and White-throated Sparrow. We also caught our first American Robin of the season. It was definitely a day of variety! We expect colder temperatures to persist throughout the week, hopefully continuing to bring more birds into our station.

-Michael

Brown Creeper (unknown age and sex)

Yellow-throated Warbler (hatch-year, male)
We know this is the interior subspecies because of the
white lores whereas the southeast subspecies, which is rarer in
South Carolina, has yellow lores. 

Little Bear
Out at Little Bear we had a similar number of birds and species, with 127 new bird and 27 recaptures of 30 different species, making for our best day of the season so far (and the best day ever at the site!). We caught seven first-of-season species for the site: Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Blue-headed Vireo, Hermit Thrush, Wood Thrush, American Robin, Bay-breasted Warbler, and White-throated Sparrow. Some of these, like the sapsucker, have been in the area for a few weeks now, some have just arrived with the cold front, and others (like the Wood Thrush and a very late Blue Grosbeak) are lingering migrants of species that have mostly passed through.

Thanks to the cooler temperatures we were able to keep the nets open for a full six hours for the first time all year. Gusting winds caused us to shut a few of them early, but overall it was a very nice change from having to shut down due to heat at 10 AM. The forecast for tomorrow is for similar temperatures, with a similar overnight wind direction, but much lower wind speeds, which may mean that bird activity could be even higher.

--Blaine

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Yellow-billed Cuckoo	-	-	3	-
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker	1	-	1	-
Downy Woodpecker	-	2	1	-
Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted)	-	-	1	-
Eastern Phoebe	4	-	4	-
Blue-headed Vireo	4	-	2	-
Red-eyed Vireo	-	-	1	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	1	-	1
Red-breasted Nuthatch	1	-	-	-
Brown Creeper	1	-	-	-
House Wren	2	-	-	-
Carolina Wren	1	1	-	-
Golden-crowned Kinglet	2	-	-	-
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	13	-	7	1
Swainson's Thrush	1	-	6	-
Hermit Thrush	12	-	7	-
Wood Thrush	-	-	1	-
American Robin	1	-	1	-
Gray Catbird	21	8	30	13
Brown Thrasher	-	-	-	1
Northern Waterthrush	-	-	1	-
Black-and-white Warbler	3	-	-	-
Orange-crowned Warbler	2	-	-	-
Nashville Warbler	1	-	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	8	-	6	1
American Redstart	2	-	1	1
Cape May Warbler	-	-	1	-
Northern Parula	5	-	2	-
Magnolia Warbler	-	-	1	-
Bay-breasted Warbler	1	-	1	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	3	-	7	-
Palm Warbler (Western)	13	-	16	-
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)	41	-	13	1
Yellow-throated Warbler	1	-	-	-
Yellow-breasted Chat	1	-	-	-
Eastern Towhee	1	-	-	-
Swamp Sparrow	2	-	3	-
White-throated Sparrow	1	-	1	-
Northern Cardinal	-	2	-	4
Blue Grosbeak	-	-	1	-
Indigo Bunting	3	-	3	-
Painted Bunting	3	1	4	3

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	155	127	282
# of Recaptures	15	26	41
# of Species	33	30	35
Effort (net-hours)	193.2	101.0	294.2
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	88.0	151.5	109.8
# of Nets	26	20	46

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Blaine Carnes (LB)
Mattie VandenBoom (LB)
Alison Nevins (CS)
Col Lauzau (LB)
Michael Gamble (CS)
Michael Rodgers (LB)
Ryan Donnelly (LB)
Jake Zadik (LB)
Chris Snook (CS)
Kristen Oliver (CS)
David McLean (CS)