Thursday, October 10, 2019

The Wild Little Kittens of Kiawah


Captain Sam's:

As we get closer to the weekend, our bird numbers have slowly been increasing! We had a total of 248 birds for the day. 214 newly banded birds and 34 recaptured birds, out of 22 species. One of the species that was banded the most today with a total of 63 were Gray Catbirds. These wild little kittens were name for there call, sounding like cat's meow. These silly birds are quite abundant and have a wide range. Feeding mostly on bugs and fruits. During migration these guys eat a bunch of berries, which usually stains our hands purple.

 Our highlight of the day was our first of the year, Ruby-crowned Kinglet! This little bird is one of the smallest songbirds that we can band, other than the Golden-crowned Kinglet. They are aged based on their tail shape. If you are interested in learning more about ageing and sexing kinglets check out the links below:

http://kiawahislandbanding.blogspot.com/2017/11/ageing-kinglets.html
http://kiawahislandbanding.blogspot.com/2014/11/ageing-and-sexing-kinglets.html

-Kristin


Little Bear:

We had a lot of bird activity at Little Bear this morning, but were only able to open 12 of our 20 nets because of strong wind gusts blowing across the station. Despite the lower number of nets, we were still able to capture 102 birds. Like at Captain Sam's, we had an influx of Gray Catbirds, which accounted for 40 our newly banded birds. We were also excited to see an American Bittern loitering on our trails during net opening and on our first net run. No luck with capturing the Bittern, but we did have our first Eastern Phoebes of the season- in fact, we caught 6 of them! We're keeping our fingers crossed for some calmer wind tomorrow morning, and to open all of our nets for a much higher number of captures.

Little Bear's first Eastern Phoebe of the season
-Josh


  SpeciesCaptain Sam'sLittle Bear
NewRecapsNewRecaps
Yellow-billed Cuckoo
1
-
-
-
Eastern Phoebe
5
1
6
-
White-eyed Vireo
1
2
1
-
Red-eyed Vireo
5
-
1
-
Carolina Chickadee
-
1
-
-
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
1
-
-
-
House Wren
6
-
4
-
Gray Catbird
63
24
40
-
Northern Mockingbird
-
1
-
-
Swainson's Thrush
5
-
2
-
Wood Thrush
1
-
-
-
Ovenbird
1
-
-
-
Northern Waterthrush
1
-
-
-
Black-and-white Warbler
1
-
-
-
Common Yellowthroat
62
1
17
-
American Redstart
26
1
1
-
Northern Parula
7
-
-
-
Black-throated Blue Warbler
13
-
1
-
'Western' Palm Warbler
6
-
14
1
'Yellow/Eastern' Palm Warbler--1-
Prairie Warbler--1-
Northern Cardinal1--1
Indigo Bunting4-2-
Painted Bunting5-61




Today's Banding StatsCaptain Sam'sLittle BearTOTAL
# Birds Banded
214
98
312
# of Recaptures
31
4
35
# of Species
22
15
24
Effort (net-hours)
171.4
66.8
238.2
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)
142.9
152.7
145.7
# of Nets
28
12
40



2019 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats Captain Sam'sLittle BearTOTAL
# Birds Banded
2,389
1,342
3731
# of Recaptures
450
194
644
# of Species
57
55
71
Effort (net-hours)
6,379.65
2,469.8
8,849.15
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)
44.5
62.2
49.5
# of Days5039-

Banding Staff

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