31st of August

Captain Sam's:

Western winds today blew in many new migrants to Kiawah. We had 49 new birds and 8 recaptures for a total of 57 birds, with 12 species represented. The diversity of migrants is starting to pick up, and we banded several species of warblers today including Prairie, Prothonotary, Black-and-white, and Worm-eating. These birds are traveling from their northern breeding grounds in the US and Canada to wintering areas in the Caribbean and Central and South America. 

  After hatch-year male Prairie Warbler. Photo by Sarah Mueller

             

After hatch-year male Black-and-white warbler. Photo by Sarah Mueller

We are also beginning to see numbers of Common Yellowthroats pick up (with 3 banded today), foreshadowing the many hundreds to come later in the season.

-Sarah M

Little Bear:

Today was a great start in the morning. A little storm off the coast this morning gave us a few first of the seasons for Little Bear! Check out this beautiful sunrise this morning of the coast. It's always a great way to start our morning after setting up our nets.

Photo by Kristin Attinger

We had a total of 21 newly banded birds. Unfortunately we did not have any recaptures. Our first of the season birds were Common Yellowthroat, Black-and-white Warbler, Yellow-breasted Chat and the best for last, Eastern Kingbird.

Below is Dan and I holding our FOS Yellow-breasted Chats. You can tell we were pretty excited to see these beauts in the hand! 

Photo by Josh Lefever

When looking at molt in the chats, we look for what is called an eccentric molt. This means the bird as replaced the outer primaries but not all the primary feathers on the wing. When looking at the photo below, you can see that what is outlined in blue is the new feathers that have been replaced and what is outlined in red is the old feathers. 

Photo by Kristin Attinger

Another cool thing to look at when aging birds is the growth bars on the tail feathers. As you can see, the red arrows pointing at the dark shades in the tail feathers. While looking at the tail, you can see how the dark bars line up with each feather going across the tail. This indicates that the tail grew in at the same time making this bird a hatch year. If the bars were uneven and sparse out then this would indicate that the bird was older and that the feathers were grown in at different times. 

Photo by Kristin Attinger

-Kristin

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Eastern Kingbird	-	-	1	-
Traill's Flycatcher	6	-	1	-
Red-eyed Vireo	11	-	2	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	1	-	-
Yellow-breasted Chat	-	-	2	-
Worm-eating Warbler	1	-	-	-
Northern Waterthrush	13	4	8	-
Black-and-white Warbler	2	-	1	-
Prothonotary Warbler	2	-	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	3	-	2	-
American Redstart	5	-	1	-
Prairie Warbler	3	-	2	-
Northern Cardinal	-	1	-	-
Painted Bunting	3	2	1	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	58	21	79
# of Recaptures	8	-	8
# of Species	12	10	22
Effort (net-hours)	140.1	88	228.1
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	40.7	23.86	38.1
# of Nets	30	20	-

2020 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	367	139	506
# of Recaptures	135	25	160
# of Species	30	27	35
Effort (net-hours)	1,828.02	738.55	2,566.57
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	27.5	22.2	25.9
# of Days	16	8	-

Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Sarah Mueller (CS)
Sarah Stewart (CS)
Vincent Weber (CS)
Dan Errichetti (LB)
Kristin Attinger (LB)
Josh Lefever (LB)