A Flock of Tree Swallows

CAPTAIN SAM'S

Despite some gusty winds, it turned out to be a pretty good day of banding with 63 new birds and 13 recaptures of 13 different species.  There were a couple of highlights today - a first of the season Field Sparrow and 37 Tree Swallows.  A large flock of Tree Swallows has been out on the spit for a couple weeks.  They show up most days feeding on insects over the marsh and dunes but on days when its cold or windy, and the insects are not flying, they look for another source of energy.  Tree Swallows are one of the few species that can digest the waxy coating on wax myrtles berries which allows them to winter further north than other swallows.  When Tree Swallows feed on wax myrtle berries the entire flock swarms a wax myrtle shrub or group of shrubs most often stripping the shrub completely of its fruit.  We have been watching the swallows feeding on wax myrtles most of the morning but they were several hundred yards down the spit.  But as we were about to close down the nets because of an approaching rain system, the swallows decided to descend onto a patch of wax myrtles right next to one of our nets.  The flock was several hundred to over a thousand strong and surprisingly (and thankfully) we only netted 37 of them.  Among the 37 swallows was a bird that was already banded.  Before today, I have only banded 66 Tree Swallows but the band did not match any of my previously banded birds which mean the bird was banded somewhere else.  After submitting the band number to the USGS Bird Banding Laboratory (BBL), I received a message that the bander has not submitted their data to the BBL yet so no information was available on this bird.  

Tree Swallow (Hatch-year, sex unknown)

Tree Swallow (unknown age, male)

            

The following video was taken by Kristin just seconds before the entire flock dove down into the wax myrtles.   

-Aaron

LITTLE BEAR

The wind slowly shut us down net by net throughout the morning as it increased in speed. However, closing early today ended up being in our favor as we got to join Captain Sam's when they caught the huge group of Tree Swallows! Little Bear ended with only 11 new birds and 10 recaptured of 10 species.

Today being Michael's birthday, he was hoping to catch something exciting. His wish was granted when we caught a Sharp-shinned Hawk! A female no less! Female's are larger than males and typically escape the net. This was Little Bear's first Sharp-shinned Hawk of the season and my first time to see a female in the hand. I was surprised by how much larger it was than previous males I've handled. Juvenile Sharp-shinned Hawks will have yellow eyes, turning orange in their second year and eventually dark red as adults. Overall, with the hawks and swallows I'd say Michael enjoyed his birthday!

Sharp-shinned Hawk (hatch-year, female)

-Meredith

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Yellow-billed Cuckoo	1	-	-	-
Sharp-shinned Hawk	-	-	1	-
Downy Woodpecker	-	1	-	-
Red-eyed Vireo	1	-	-	-
Tree Swallow	36	1	-	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	2	-	-
House Wren	-	1	-	-
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	3	1	1	-
Hermit Thrush	-	-	1	-
Gray Catbird	1	2	1	8
Eastern Towhee	1	1	-	-
Field Sparrow	1	-	-	-
Song Sparrow	-	-	3	-
Swamp Sparrow	-	1	1	-
Orange-crowned Warbler	1	-	-	-
Cape May Warbler	-	-	-	1
Palm Warbler (Western)	-	-	1	-
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)	18	3	1	-
Painted Bunting	-	-	1	1

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	63	11	74
# of Recaptures	13	10	23
# of Species	13	10	19
Effort (net-hours)	126.9	62.1	189
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	59.9	33.8	51.3
# of Nets	29	20	49

2018 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	3,526	2,686	6,212
# of Recaptures	1,004	529	1,533
# of Species	78	76	94
Effort (net-hours)	9,916.3	4,830.25	14,746.55
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	45.7	66.6	52.5
# of Days	82	71	-

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Michael Gamble (LB)
Meredith Heather (LB)
Kristin Attinger (CS)