Under cloudy skies and with a light breeze, things picked up a bit today and I was able to open all 29 nets. I banded 49 new birds and had 10 recaptures of 17 species. Painted Bunting were out in force with a total 19 of them captured. Every age/sex class combination was represented including after second-year male, after second-year female, second-year, male, second-year female, and hatch-year, sex unknown. Spoiler Alert: once I collect enough photos, I will be publishing a blog post about ageing and sexing Painted Buntings, so stay tuned.
There were lots of first-of-the-seasons today which are not that hard to come by on the 2nd day of banding. These included Great Crested Flycatcher, "Traill's" Flycatcher, White-eyed Vireo, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Brown Thrasher, Eastern Towhee, Prothonotary Warbler, and Yellow Warbler.
On a cloudy day, a bright yellow warbler really stands out when captured in the net and today almost a 1/4 of the birds were bright yellow warblers. See the pics below for examples of them.
North winds tonight should bring in some new migrants and push out some that might be just hanging out. I don't expect to see the fat Red-eyed Vireo that I banded yesterday and recaptured again today. I'm guessing it'll ride the winds down to Florida tonight.
-Aaron
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| Prairie Warbler (after hatch-year, male) |
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| Prothonotary Warbler (hatch-year, male) If you look closely, you can see that this bird has a slight bill deformity. |
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| Yellow Warbler (after hatch-year, male) |
| Species | Captain Sam's | Little Bear | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New | Recaps | New | Recaps | |
Great Crested Flycatcher | 1 | - | - | - |
Eastern Kingbird | 1 | - | - | - |
Traill's Flycatcher | 1 | - | - | - |
White-eyed Vireo | 1 | - | - | - |
Red-eyed Vireo | - | 1 | - | - |
Carolina Chickadee | 1 | 2 | - | - |
Carolina Wren | 1 | 3 | - | - |
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher | 2 | - | - | - |
Brown Thrasher | 1 | - | - | - |
Northern Mockingbird | 1 | - | - | - |
Eastern Towhee | 1 | - | - | - |
Northern Waterthrush | 3 | - | - | - |
Prothonotary Warbler | 2 | - | - | - |
Yellow Warbler | 2 | - | - | - |
Prairie Warbler | 8 | - | - | - |
Northern Cardinal | 6 | 2 | - | - |
Painted Bunting | 17 | 2 | - | - |
| Today's Banding Stats | Captain Sam's | Little Bear | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| # Birds Banded | 49 | - | - |
| # of Recaptures | 10 | - | - |
| # of Species | 17 | - | - |
| Effort (net-hours) | 145.7 | - | - |
| Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) | 40.5 | - | - |
| # of Nets | 29 | - | - |
| 2020 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats | Captain Sam's | Little Bear | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| # Birds Banded | 72 | - | - |
| # of Recaptures | 12 | - | - |
| # of Species | 19 | - | - |
| Effort (net-hours) | 208.85 | - | - |
| Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) | 40.2 | - | - |
| # of Days | 2 | - | - |
Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
