The Story of a Camera, a Bag, and 100 Species

Captain Sam's:

Today had a little bit less of movement compared to yesterday. We ended up with a total of 34 birds. We did however capture a new Blue-headed Vireo. These birds are a great bird to see in the hand!
Another amazing thing about today is that we recaptured at least 2 Yellow-rumped Warblers that were banded prior years! One of them was banded in 2015 making them at least 4+ years old! It is great to see some of these birds still making their stop at Kiawah Island!

-Kristin

Little Bear:

Today I want to talk to you all about a camera, a bag, and one special bird:

So, this season has been remarkable for all of us crew members at KIBS for a plethora of reasons. Between the Green Heron, Bobolink, Screech Owls, Sora, Chuck-Will's-Widow, Winter Wren, Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, Eastern Kingbird, Clay-Colored Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, Cooper's Hawks, Bay-Breasted Warbler, Hooded Warbler, and Loggerhead Shrike there's been a common link. Have you guessed it yet? I bet you're just as smart as I thought you were and guessed it had to do with that weird title! Well, you're right! Let me explain...

Very early on in this season there was this small trend that we all noticed (as scientists we do that a lot), it seemed that any day I brought my camera to the banding station with me, we'd catch a great bird. But the trend continued even through our slowest days like when we caught the Junco, one of our owls, and today's special bird.

Dave's camera with the Hooded Warbler from earlier in the season (Photo by: Josh Lefever)

But guess what? There's a second item in that title isn't there? A bag...is it a grocery bag? A backpack? Whoa, hold your horses partner, let me tell ya! So before I came down here I volunteered time at my local banding station in Michigan where I got my start in the banding world and accidentally left with a bird bag (sorry Jen). Well one day in late October, I was out at Little Bear and it was really slow and we needed some luck. I walked up to the first net and I think there was a Common Yellowthroat in it, and I reached down for a bag, not finding one I moved to my pocket where I kept this special bag and put the bird in it. The very next net, we picked up our first Orange-crowned Warbler of the year and ever since that bag has brought us luck!

Dave's bag from MSBO

Well folks, today I brought both my camera and my bird bag. Josh in fact asked if I had both and I assured him I did, then gave the lucky bag a quick rub (no genie popped out unfortunately) and set out on our first net run. Let me tell you, it was a slow run. But we were rewarded later with our station first Chipping Sparrow!

Hatch-year Chipping Sparrow (Photo by: Dave Sandahl)

Not much really happened on our next run, but I remember our 9:50 net run like it just happened a couple of hours ago! I was walking from net 10 to meet up with Dan and I heard the very obvious call of a bird and yelled out to him "Sounds like somebody got a cuckoo", too which he responded "I think I've got something really good". I came over quickly and that's right you guys, he was standing there as giddy as a schoolboy with a Black-Billed Cuckoo in his hand! There may have been some high-fives and jumping, who knows? Anyway here it is:

Look at that Black Billlllllll (Photo By: Dave Sandahl)

In all its hatch-yearness (Photo by: Josh Lefever)

Dan extracted this son of a gun and he gave the Dave thumbs up!

Josh loves this bird, this is his "I love this bird" face

Its thinking of using Dave's beard as nesting material for next year

So to give you some perspective on this special bird, its only the third ever caught at KIBS, and by far the latest date recorded here (the previous being September 17)! Its incredibly rare to still have around at the station this late in the season, but its also very rare to be in this country! That's right, the last confirmed report of one of these guys in the entire United States was 18 days ago. If that's not exciting enough, this special bird took us to 100 species for the season. A number that collectively was a goal of ours and sets a new species record at KIBS! What a day its been and we still have a week left, think of the possibilities!

For your entertainment: The Big Reveal

- Dave "Can't wait to update you with 101" Sandahl

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Black-Billed Cuckoo	-	-	1	-
Eastern Phoebe	-	-	1	-
Blue-Headed Vireo	1	-	-	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	2	-	-
Ruby-Crowned Kinglet	5	-	4	2
Hermit Thrush	-	1	-	-
Gray Catbird	-	3	-	3
House Wren	-	-	1	-
Chipping Sparrow	-	-	2	-
Song Sparrow	3	-	3	-
Swamp Sparrow	1	-	1	-
Eastern Towhee	-	-	1	-
Orange-Crowned Warbler	1	-	1	-
Black-and-White Warbler	-	1	-	-
(Myrtle) Yellow-Rumped Warbler	7	7	14	-
Northern Cardinal	-	1	-	1

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	19	29	48
# of Recaptures	15	6	21
# of Species	12	12	16
Effort (net-hours)	165.2	120.0	285.2
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	20.6	29.2	24.2
# of Nets	28	20	48

2019 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	3,991	2,534	6,525
# of Recaptures	944	440	1,384
# of Species	83	79	100
Effort (net-hours)	10,469.6	5,038.4	15,508
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	47.1	59.0	51.0
# of Days	78	68	-

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Arcata Leavitt (CS)
Dan Errichetti (LB)
Dave Sandahl (LB) 
Josh Lefever (LB)
Kristin Attinger (CS)
Vince Spagnuolo (CS)
Janine Maseley (CS)