Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Yellowthroats on the Rise

CAPTAIN SAM'S:

We had a Common Yellowthroat influx this morning. We doubled our overall captures from the day before because of these spunky little guys with 33 newly banded individuals and one recapture. In total we processed 65 birds including a nice looking Yellow-breasted Chat. This species was once considered a warbler, but it was put into its own family called icteriidae (not to be confused with the blackbird family, icteridae). Their song has an elaborate mixture of noises including mimics from other species. The males will perform a spectacle of a flight display where they bounce downwards from the peak of their flight with deep, slow wing beats while they dangle their legs underneath them. All together a very interesting and fun bird.
Hatch-year Female Yellow-breasted Chat

To see more of and hear the Yellow-breasted Chat, check out this link below!
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Yellow-breasted_Chat/sounds

--Dan

LITTLE BEAR:

Things slowed down at Little Bear following yesterday's exciting new species. We managed a modest 32 captures before closing early due to heat. We recaptured several of the 22 Northern Waterthrushes banded yesterday, along with 7 new ones. Waterthrushes have a slight misnomer of a name, as they are actually large brown warblers, but they do love foraging for insects around standing water (which makes our flooded banding site perfect stop-over habitat for them). These Middle America bound migrants have been our most frequently captured species so far this season, and are just reaching their peak migration numbers here in coastal South Carolina. We are looking forward to them soon tapering off, and being replaced by a greater diversity of more colorful warblers over the next couple weeks.

Northern Waterthrush
--Josh



  SpeciesCaptain Sam'sLittle Bear
NewRecapsNewRecaps
Downy Woodpecker
1
-
-
-
Traill's Flycatcher
-
-
1
-
White-eyed Vireo
2
1
-
-
Red-eyed Vireo
3
1
-
-
Carolina Chickadee
1
1
-
-
Brown Thrasher
1
-
-
-
Eastern Towhee
-
1
-
-
Yellow-breasted Chat
1
-
-
-
Ovenbird
2
1
-
-
Northern Waterthrush
2
3
7
6
Common Yellowthroat
33
1
7
1
American Redstart
-
1
-
1
Yellow Warbler
-
-
1
-
Prairie Warbler
-
-
1
-
Northern Cardinal
-
1
1
2
Painted Bunting
5
1
4
-




Today's Banding StatsCaptain Sam'sLittle BearTOTAL
# Birds Banded
51
22
73
# of Recaptures
13
10
23
# of Species
14
8

Effort (net-hours)
131.8
68
199.8
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)
48.6
47.1
48.5
# of Nets
28
20
48



2019 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats Captain Sam'sLittle BearTOTAL
# Birds Banded
468
269
737
# of Recaptures
192
73
265
# of Species
32
27
38
Effort (net-hours)
2,580.85
767.2
3,348.05
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)
25.6
44.6
29.9
# of Days2113-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)
Dan Errichetti (CS)
Arcata Leavitt (CS)
Dave Sandahl (CS) 
Josh Lefever (LB)
Kristin Attinger (LB)
Bethany Darby (LB)