KIBS First: Kirtland's Warbler!!!

Captain Sam's 

Today we had a good diversity of warblers at Captain Sam's and a good amount of birds. Overall we banded 54 new birds of 11 recaptures of 14 species. We also had our first Eastern Wood-Pewee of the season. Now onto the main event at Little Bear!

Little Bear

We had a great day at Little Bear with 69 new birds banded and 3 recaptures of 18 different species. The weather also cooperated and we were able to keep most of our nets open until after 10AM. We had a good diversity of warblers with 9 species being caught throughout the morning. We had a first-of-the season Eastern Phoebe and saw our first Common Ground-Dove at the site this season, which is very unusual since they were so abundant in previous years.  The snow and ice storm that we had last January may have taken a toll on Kiawah's Common Ground-Dove population. 

The real star of our morning and the last bird banded was a Kiawah Island Banding Station first, a Kirtland's Warbler!! This is the first of this species to be banded in the state of South Carolina as well as the first to be banded south of West Virginia. This is an exciting capture because the Kirtland's Warbler is an endangered species that breeds exclusively in young jack pine forests in Michigan and Wisconsin. This species was one of the first to be listed after Congress passed the Endangered Species Act in 1973 and had to be listed due to loss of habitat on their breeding grounds and nest parasitism by Brown-headed Cowbirds. The species has recovered but has not been delisted yet due to the need for continuous habitat management.

Kirtland's Warbler range map (from the Birds of North America)

From the jack pine forests of their breeding grounds, Kirtland's Warblers migrate to the Bahamas to spend the winter; this is where South Carolina factors in. Recent work has been done to examine the migratory connectivity of the Kirtland's Warbler in order to understand their full life history and determine if there are additional limitations on the birds aside from those faced on the breeding grounds. Data from geolocators deployed by the Smithsonian on male birds on the breeding grounds showed they are using North and South Carolina on their migratory route. This study also indicated that the birds could be using the North and South Carolina coastline as a stopover site before they begin their open-water migration to their wintering grounds. This has created a bit of a joke at KIBS that one was bound to turn up in our nets eventually!

Kirtland's Warbler (hatch-year, sex unknown)

Kirtland's Warbler

-Michael

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Eastern Wood-Pewee	1	-	-	-
Eastern Phoebe	-	-	1	-
White-eyed Vireo	1	-	1	-
Red-eyed Vireo	2	-	1	-
House Wren	-	-	1	-
Carolina Wren	-	1	-	1
Gray Catbird	22	8	23	-
Northern Mockingbird	1	-	1	-
Ovenbird	-	-	1	-
Northern Waterthrush	-	-	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	11	1	12	-
American Redstart	5	-	3	-
Kirtland's Warbler	-	-	1	-
Cape May Warbler	-	-	3	-
Yellow Warbler	-	-	2	1
Black-throated Blue Warbler	6	-	-	-
Palm Warbler (Western)	-	-	12	-
Prairie Warbler	1	-	2	-
Northern Cardinal	1	2	-	-
Indigo Bunting	-	-	1	-
Painted Bunting	3	1	3	1

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	54	69	123
# of Recaptures	13	3	17
# of Species	12	18	21
Effort (net-hours)	121.7	71.35	193.05
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	55.1	100.9	72.5
# of Nets	28	20	48

2018 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	1,304	957	2,261
# of Recaptures	317	162	479
# of Species	46	41	57
Effort (net-hours)	4956.8	2044.95	7001.75
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	32.7	54.7	39.1
# of Days	43	36	-

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