Just a little Migration

Captain Sam's 
A shift in winds overnight was a bit more favorable for migrating birds.  We finished the day with 31 new banded birds and 7 recaptures, for a total of 38 captures.  While it wasn't quite as busy as we were hoping, it was definitely a step in the right direction!

The highlight of the morning was a hatch-year Swainson's Warbler, a species that we are lucky to catch even once a year!  Swainson's Warblers breed in the Southeast and spend their winters in parts of Central America and the Caribbean.  These guys are particularly secretive and the opportunity to see one so close was a real treat.

This is a photo of a Swainson's Warbler caught at KIBS in 2012 (Hatch-year, unknown sex)

Hurricane Irma seems to have us in her sights and we are going to break down our site tomorrow.  However, we will sneak in one more morning of banding, and with this continuing northerly wind, we're hoping it'll be a good one.

-Brandon

Little Bear
What an exciting day to be out at little bear! Our capture rates were somewhat low but pretty steady throughout the day. This allowed us to end up at a total of 64 captures of 50 new birds banded and 14 recaptures. Today's total takes the lead for most number of captures for the season so far. We hope this will change! :)

Two birds that we caught at little bear today have only ever been caught one other time at KIBS....ever! A Black-billed Cuckoo and a Mourning Warbler! Both of these species are known for taking a more inland route during fall migration rather than fallowing the coast like so many other species tend to do. With our north westerly winds last night and this morning these birds must have been blown closer to the coast than expected.

Our Mourning warbler this morning was a hatch year female lacking the distinct grey head of an adult and lacking the black throat/breast of a male.

Mourning Warbler (Hatch-year, Female)

Mourning Warbler (Hatch-year, Female)

 This black-billed Cuckoo was also a hatch-year bird indicated by the yellow orbital ring around the eye. In adult birds this ring will be a bright red color. Our hatch-year is also lacking the nice white tips to it's tail.

Black-billed Cuckoo (Hatch-year, sex unknown)

We are hoping to continue to catch some more migrants tomorrow before packing up in preparation for Hurricane Irma.

-Kristen

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Black-billed Cuckoo	-	-	1	-
"Trails" Flycatcher	3	-	2	1
Eastern Kingbird	-	-	1	-
White-eyed Vireo	-	-	-	1
Red-eyed Vireo	5	2	5	2
Carolina Chickadee	1	-	-	-
Carolina Wren	-	-	2	-
Veery	1	-	1	-
Yellow-breasted Chat	-	1	-	-
Baltimore Oriole	-	-	2	-
Ovenbird	1	-	-	-
Northern Waterthrush	6	2	22	-
Swainson's Warbler	1	-	-	-
Mourning Warbler	-	-	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	-	-	4	3
American Redstart	4	-	3	-
Cape May Warbler	-	-	1	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	3	-	-	-
Prairie Warbler	4	-	1	1
Northern Cardinal	-	1	-	3
Painted Bunting	2	1	4	3

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	31	50	81
# of Recaptures	7	14	21
# of Species	11	16	21
Effort (net-hours)	135.2	116	251.2
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	28.1	55.2	40.6
# of Nets	26	20	46

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Mattie VandenBoom (LB)
Michael Gamble (CS)
Kristen Oliver (LB)
Brandon Connare (CS)
Paul Carroll (LB)
Hannah Conley (CS)