4th Ever Mourning Warbler

Captain Sam's

We had quite a slow day at Captain Sam's with 8 new birds and 6 recaptures of 8 species. The Easterly winds are keeping the birds who are migrating, inland. We keep waiting for a Westerly component for higher numbers. I did get to see my first Northern Waterthrush in hand, which was quite enjoyable. In hand, this bird's throat streaking was way more obvious than in the field. This is one good way to separate Northern Waterthrush from the similar Louisiana Waterthrush, which has a whiter, less streaked throat. This can be hard to see through binoculars however.

-Joel

Northern Waterthrush (hatch-year, unknown sex)

Little Bear

It was a better day out at Little Bear with 11 new birds and 4 recaptures of 6 species. The highlight of the morning was a first-of-the-season and our 4th ever Mourning Warbler! We do not catch many of these at KIBS, and we did not catch our first one until the fall of 2016 at Captain Sam's. Now it seems we catch at least one a fall with 2 last fall (one at Captain Sam's and one at Little Bear) and now one this season. The one we captured today was a hatch-year male with a grayish head and whitish throat and chin. Adult males will have a full dark gray hood and chin with black on the upper breast. Hatch-year females will have a dull brownish olive head and a buffy yellow throat whereas adult females will look very similar to a hatch-year male. I posted a series of photos below that show the progression of the gray hood and black breast as you go from hatch-year male in the fall to second-year male in the spring and then to after-hatch-year male the next fall.

Mourning Warbler 

Hatch-year male caught today at Little Bear

Mourning Warbler

Second-year male caught at the Chester River Field Research Station in Maryland this past spring

Mourning Warbler

After-hatch-year male caught at the Chester River Field Research Station last fall

-Michael

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Red-eyed Vireo	1	-	1	-
Carolina Wren	-	2	-	-
Northern Mockingbird	-	1	-	-
Ovenbird	-	-	1	-
Northern Waterthrush	1	-	1	-
Mourning Warbler	-	-	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	1	-	-	-
American Redstart	1	-	-	-
Prairie Warbler	2	-	3	-
Painted Bunting	2	3	4	4

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	8	11	19
# of Recaptures	6	4	10
# of Species	8	6	10
Effort (net-hours)	114.8	62.0	176.8
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	12.2	24.2	16.4
# of Nets	28	20	48

2018 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	337	149	486
# of Recaptures	122	40	162
# of Species	30	18	33
Effort (net-hours)	2698.3	795.65	3493.95
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	17.0	23.8	18.5
# of Days	22	14	-

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Michael Gamble (LB)
Meredith Heather (LB)
Danaé Mouton (LB)
Kristin Attinger (CS)
Joanne Hamilton (CS)
Joel Throckmorton (CS)