The Last Day of the 2018 Fall Migration Season

CAPTAIN SAM'S

Today was the last day of the 2018 fall migration season.  Bird activity slowed down a bit with 18 new birds and 20 recaptures of 6 different species.  

I captured a Yellow-rumped Warbler with a strange molt today.  The bird was an adult which should have replaced all of it feathers during its prebasic molt this summer.  The odd thing about this bird was that it failed to replace 4 inner secondaries on the right wing, 3 inner secondaries of the left wing, all 3 alula feathers on the right wing, and 2 alula feathers on the left wing.  The unreplaced feathers were extremely brown and worn indicating that they were not juvenile feathers from this year.  

Yellow-rumped Warbler wing.  Note how brown and worn the retained 4 inner secondaries are.  

The last bird banded during the 2018 fall migration season was a Ruby-crowned Kinglet.  After a rather disappointing season for Ruby-crowned Kinglets this fall, their numbers had a little surge this last week including 5 today.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet (hatch-year, male)

And the last bird captured of the 2018 fall migration season was a recaptured Yellow-rumped Warbler.  

Yellow-rumped Warbler (hatch-year, male)

  

 Over the next few days, I will be putting together a preliminary summary of the 2018 season so keep checking back to see how we ended up.  

-Aaron

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Carolina Chickadee	-	1	-	-
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	5	-	-	-
Hermit Thrush	-	1	-	-
Gray Catbird	-	6	-	-
Swamp Sparrow	1	-	-	-
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)	12	10	-	-
Northern Cardinal	-	1	-	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	18	-	18
# of Recaptures	19	-	19
# of Species	7	-	7
Effort (net-hours)	134.0	-	134.0
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	27.6	-	27.6
# of Nets	28	-	28

2018 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	4,035	2,710	6,745
# of Recaptures	1,298	541	1,839
# of Species	80	76	96
Effort (net-hours)	12,347.5	4,978.25	17,325.8
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	43.2	65.3	49.5
# of Days	100	74	-

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)