First Day of the 2018 Fall Migration Banding Season

Today was the first day of the 2018 fall migration banding season on Kiawah Island.  It was a warm and muggy morning but a nice southwest breeze kept it somewhat bearable.  As far a first days go, today was pretty good with 43 new birds and 4 recaptures of 12 different species.  The first bird of the day was a previously banded adult male Northern Cardinal which was banded exactly 2 years ago as a hatch year.  This bird has also been recaptured 8 additional times between today and 8/15/2016.

Northern Cardinal

Another interesting bird captured this was an adult male Indigo Bunting.  We band many Indigo Buntings during the course of a fall at KIBS but what made this one interesting was that it was still in alternate plumage.  Every other Indigo Bunting that we have banded over the years have been in basic plumage.  This bird should molt out of its breeding blues and into its winter browns very soon. 

Indigo Bunting

I am happy to have a talented and experienced group of banders with me this season.  Michael is back for his 4th fall season at KIBS and will be leading the Little Bear banding site this year.  Kristin, Meredith, and Danae arrived this afternoon and will be getting an introduction to Captain Sam's banding site tomorrow.  Joanne and Joel will arrive at the end of August.   I have updated the Banding Staff page if you are interested to learn more about the 2018 KIBS banding team.     

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Great Crested Flycatcher	3	-	-	-
Eastern Kingbird	1	-	-	-
Carolina Chickadee	4	-	-	-
Carolina Wren	3	-	-	-
Brown Thrasher	1	-	-	-
Northern Mockingbird	1	-	-	-
Eastern Towhee	1	-	-	-
Northern Waterthrush	1	-	-	-
Prairie Warbler	6	-	-	-
Northern Cardinal	5	1	-	-
Indigo Bunting	1	-	-	-
Painted Bunting	15	3	-	-

Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	43	-	43
# of Recaptures	4	-	4
# of Species	12	-	12
Effort (net-hours)	191.4	-	191.41
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	24.6	-	24.6
# of Nets	28	-	28

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Michael Gamble (CS)
Ryan Donnelly (CS)
Matt Johnson (CS)