An Early Yellow-rumped Warbler

Captain Sam's:

Knowing there was a chance of a busy day, I still gave Kristin the day off.  She deserved it!  Kandace and I had our work cut out for us but efficiently processed 128 birds today (113 new birds and 15 recaptures of 18 species).  Most of what we captured today were Common Yellowthroats and Gray Catbirds with a sprinkling of other expected late September species such as Palm Warblers, Red-eyed Vireos, and American Redstarts.  A hatch-year male Summer Tanager was the highlight of the day, unfortunately, he did not cooperate for a photo.  

As we head into October, I reflected on the first month and a half of the season thinking that we had a relatively slow start.  But to my surprise this has actually been the second best start to a season since we began banding daily in 2012.  The average number of birds banded up to this point in the season is 1,726 birds with the highest coming in 2017 when we banded 2,461. So far this year we have banded 1.918 birds.   The lowest  was in 2018 with only 1,086 birds banded prior to October.  October is usually our busiest month so we are looking forward to see what else will come.  

-Aaron

Little Bear:

We were greeted by a warm and humid morning for the last day of September, but were delighted to hear a decent number of flight calls overhead while opening our mist nets. Before we even went on our first check, we extracted 3 birds from the net closest to our banding table; always a good sign for a busy day. And it turned out to be our second 100+ bird day of the season at Little Bear. We captured and processed 110 total birds today, just a few less then our season high of 119. Over half of our newly banded birds were Common Yellowthroats and Gray Catbirds, but we also caught two first-of-season species. We had a Least Flycatcher (uncooperative for pictures) and an early Yellow-rumped Warbler. As we go into October, Yellow-rumps will gradually replace Common Yellowthroats as our most abundant warbler species but for today it was a nice surprise!

"Myrtle" Yellow-rumped Warbler

Our most photogenic bird of the day was a Yellow-billed Cuckoo, one of my favorite birds. 

Yellow-billed Cuckoo

Another highlight of the day was when Nate wrangled a Glass Lizard, also commonly referred to as 'legless lizards'.

Glass Lizard

While their lack of legs make them superficially appear to be a snake, there a several other differences between snakes and lizards. One of the most visible differences is that lizards have external ear openings and snakes do not. In the photo below, the 'ear hole' of our Glass Lizard is visible where the arrow is pointing

Despite unfavorable winds, its been a productive week of banding at Little Bear and we're optimistic for another good day tomorrow!

-Josh

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Yellow-billed Cuckoo	1	-	2	-
Eastern Wood-Pewee	3	-	-	-
Least Flycatcher	-	-	1	-
White-eyed Vireo	1	1	2	1
Red-eyed Vireo	3	-	3	-
Tufted Titmouse	1	-	1	-
House Wren	2	-	2	-
Gray Catbird	35	10	29	2
Brown Thrasher	-	1	-	-
Swainson's Thrush	-	-	3	-
Northern Waterthrush	-	-	2	-
Black-and-white Warbler	1	-	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	46	2	33	3
American Redstart	3	-	6	-
Cape May Warbler	3	-	-	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	4	-	2	-
Palm Warbler	7	-	12	-
Yellow-rumped Warbler	-	-	1	-
Prairie Warbler	1	-	1	-
Summer Tanager	1	-	-	-
Northern Cardinal	-	-	-	1
Blue Grosbeak	-	1	-	-
Indigo Bunting	-	-	1	-
Painted Bunting	1	-	-	1

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	113	102	215
# of Recaptures	15	8	23
# of Species	18	19	24
Effort (net-hours)	177.0	138.0	315.0
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	72.3	79.7	75.6
# of Nets	30	23	-

2021 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	1,918	1,151	3,069
# of Recaptures	254	150	404
# of Species	56	52	65
Effort (net-hours)	6,010.2	3,896.4	9,906.6
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	36.1	33.4	35.0
# of Days	43	38	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kandace Glanville (CS)

Ben Stalheim (LB)

Nate Watkins (LB)

Josh Lefever (LB)

No Way, That's a Blue Jay

 Captain Sam's:

Are we back to August? Nope but with the winds the way they are today we managed to catch a few new individuals but not many more than we recaptured! Days like this are often days where these two categories nearly equal one another. A few eager birds moving against the grain of migration and a few stragglers who want to put on some extra weight before the next jump. A good portion of our recaptured birds this week have been Gray Catbirds from the days prior. Nothing like pulling a catbird out of the net at 7:10 AM and being yelled out so loudly! Other than that not too much else to report from Captain Sam's! Hoping for better winds!

        A catbird alarm

       The rooster substitution

       Calling from the hand

- Nate 

Little Bear:

Little Bear was quiet as we setup the nets; however, after the sun rose, bird activity started to come alive. We brought back close to 20 birds on the first run and steadily found more as the day progressed. Like the previous few days, the sun sweltered and brought with it the heat that likely forces birds to be less active and therefore, less caught in our nets. Nevertheless, we had a wonderful morning and were rewarded with a beautiful new bird for the season in the late morning.

That bird was a BLUE JAY! Yeah it's true that Blue Jays are recognizable by almost all people. But these birds are stunning, wicked smart, and very rare to actually to be caught. For Little Bear, this was just the 2nd time a Blue Jay has been caught, and this was the first one at either Kiawah station in multiple years. The previous few days we had seen them around, but as I walked up and realized what we had caught, I still couldn't believe it. 

Hatch-year unknown Blue Jay

We aged this bird as a Hatch-Year, because of the molt limits in the secondaries, greater coverts, and the pattern of the primary coverts. In the spread-wing photo, you can see the feathers closest to the body of the bird are a lighter, brighter blue than the adjacent ones. We determined that these had been replaced and, but not the ones in the direction of the last flight feather. This replacement pattern is typical of young jays, but not adults. Harder to see in this photo is the limit in the greater coverts. However, the bird also replaced the inner greater coverts, but left a few of its juvenile coverts, creating another molt limit in the wing. Lastly, the primary coverts of this bird were a clean blueish-brown without any barring. In adults, these coverts would be barred like those next to them and without the rusty brown tinge. All of this helped us feel confident in determining this bird hatched this year. To sex them, we took wing and tail measurements, but these fell within a range that didn't allow us 100% confidence, so we left that as unknown.

Spread-wing shot showing the molt limits we look for in aging the bird.

This was such a special treat on a beautiful day. We ended the day with 47 newly banded birds and 7 recaptures. The birds kept us on our toes and having fun, and we are looking forward to what the rest of the week has in store. 

Our Blue Jay was a fantastic model.

-Benjamin

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Downy Woodpecker	-	-	-	1
Traill's Flycatcher	-	-	-	1
White-eyed Vireo	1	-	1	-
Red-eyed Vireo	-	1	2	-
Blue Jay	-	-	1	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	-	-	1
House Wren	-	-	1	-
Gray Catbird	6	7	11	-
Brown Thrasher	-	1	-	-
Veery	-	-	1	-
Northern Waterthrush	2	-	1	3
Ovenbird	-	1	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	4	2	18	-
American Redstart	-	-	-	1
Cape May Warbler	1	-	1	-
Northern Parula	-	-	1	-
Yellow Warbler	-	-	1	-
Western Palm Warbler	-	-	6	-
Prairie Warbler	-	-	1	-
Painted Bunting	-	-	1	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	16	47	63
# of Recaptures	12	7	19
# of Species	8	18	20
Effort (net-hours)	105	112.7	217.7
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	26.7	47.9	37.7
# of Nets	30	23	53

2021 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	1805	1049	2854
# of Recaptures	238	142	380
# of Species	56	50	64
Effort (net-hours)	5833.2	3758.4	9591.6
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	35.0	31.7	33.7
# of Days	42	37	-

Banding Staff

Kristin Attinger (CS)

Kandace Glanville (CS)

Ben Stalheim (LB)

Nate Watkins (CS)

Josh Lefever (LB)

Some Noteworthy Visitors

Captain Sam's:

Today at Captain Sam's, we got to host a Master Naturalist class and let them all see what we do at bird banding each day! Aaron showed them how we band birds, determine their age and sex, measure their wing chord, score the fat in their furcular hollow, weigh them, and release. Everyone was delighted to see birds up so close, and get a chance to learn about them in depth. It was a busy enough day to have a nice variety of species to show off, but not too busy that we were overwhelmed trying to keep up with the birds and the folks in class. It was a delight having them there - they were all so interested and asked great questions! A nice distraction from our regular daily routine. 

Thanks for coming out, and keep birding!

-Kandace

Little Bear:

It was another nice morning at Little Bear, not too busy, but still with plenty of birds around. We banded 33 new birds today, and a Gray Catbird that we caught later in the session was the 1,000th bird banded at Little Bear this fall season. It took us until our 36th day to reach the 1K milestone this year, which is a few days more than usual. However we started banding a couple days earlier than usual this year, and have had less rain days than other years. By calendar date, today is the earliest that Little Bear has ever hit 1,000 new birds.

We had pretty good diversity, 14 species, some of which were a little surprising. Most so was a Worm-eating Warbler, a migrant that's mostly passed through our region all ready and one that we don't catch much of to begin with. Today's bird was only our 5th this year, and the first since September 2nd. I doubt I'll be seeing anymore of these guys until next spring!

Worm-eating Warbler

We also banded a Brown Thrasher today, a very common species, but only the second one we've caught at Little Bear this year. Our bird was uncharacteristically calm, and it posed nicely photographs.

Brown Thrasher

-Josh

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Downy Woodpecker	-	1	-	-
White-eyed Vireo	1	4	-	-
Red-eyed Vireo	4	-	-	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	3	-	-
Tufted Titmouse	-	-	1	-
House Wren	1	-	1	-
Carolina Wren	-	-	-	2
Gray Catbird	17	6	10	5
Brown Thrasher	-	2	1	-
Veery	1	-	-	-
Ovenbird	1	-	1	-
Worm-eating Warbler	-	-	1	-
Northern Waterthrush	3	1	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	5	5	12	4
American Redstart	3	-	-	-
Northern Parula	-	-	1	-
"Western" Palm Warbler	-	-	2	-
Prairie Warbler	-	-	1	-
Northern Cardinal	-	-	-	1
Indigo Bunting	1	-	1	-
Painted Bunting	3	-	1	1

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	40	33	73
# of Recaptures	22	13	35
# of Species	14	14	21
Effort (net-hours)	144.0	109.25	253.25
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	43.1	42.1	42.6
# of Nets	30	23	53

2021 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	1,789	1,002	2,791
# of Recaptures	226	135	361
# of Species	56	49	63
Effort (net-hours)	5,728.2	3,645.7	9,373.9
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	35.2	31.2	33.6
# of Days	41	36	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kristin Attinger (CS)

Kandace Glanville (CS)

Ben Stalheim (LB)

Nate Watkins (CS)

Josh Lefever (LB)

A Sweet September Day

 Captain Sam's:

Today was an average day. We had a total of 86 birds with 79 of those birds new! Our highlight was catching 2 Cape May Warblers, as shown below. Both of these birds are hatch year, male on the left and female on the right. You can see how close they look to each other but the male is showing some brighter colors around the face, grayer back and more defined streaking on the breast. Its a great comparison between sexes on a hatch year.

Cape May Warbler: Male on the left, female on the right
Age: Hatch year

During our busy days we had previously captured a Chestnut-sided Warbler but never had time getting a great photo of it. Today was our lucky day since we captured another one! This Chestnut-sided Warbler is an adult female. 

September is almost over and soon October will be here. Time sure flies by fast in the bird world.

-Kristin

Little Bear:

It was just Josh and I at Little Bear today, which meant that a normal day as far as bird totals helped it feel a little busier than normal. Our first few runs were abundant, and quickly the sun came out to ruin the fun. However, we were able to still continue capturing some birds throughout the day. W finished with 75 birds of 16 species on the day, not a bad September day at all!

After opening nets, we checked them right away to gauge how busy the day would be. I only found one bird, but it was a hatch-year male Hooded Warbler. This was the first male I've ever had in the hand, and it was stunning! 

Hatch-year Male Hooded Warbler

We caught quite a few birds that we had banded on previous days today. One bird that comes to mind is a hatch-year male American Redstart. This one bird was banded on the 24th of September, then recaptured on the 26th and 27th. Meaning it has stayed in the area for at least 4 days. I love seeing things like this, because it is so interesting to see this little bird hanging around and attempting to fatten up before it continues its migration.

We also saw a few species that hadn't been found at Little Bear in a while such as Ovenbird and Veery. These birds are likely from much further North than the those who already all came through.

-Ben

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Downy Woodpecker	-	1	-	-
Traill's Flycatcher	-	-	1	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	1	-	-
White-eyed Vireo	3	1	2	-
Red-eyed Vireo	13	-	2	-
House Wren	2	-	-	-
Veery	1	-	1	-
Swainson's Thrush	3	-	-	-
Gray Catbird	18	-	8	1
Northern Mockingbird	-	1	-	-
Yellow-breasted Chat	1	-	1	1
Ovenbird	3	-	1	-
Northern Waterthrush	4	-	6	1
Black-and-white Warbler	2	-	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	18	2	19	3
Hooded Warbler	-	-	1	-
American Redstart	1	-	2	1
Cape May Warbler	2	-	-	-
Yellow Warbler	-	-	1	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	1	-	1	-
Chestnut-sided Warbler	1	-	-	-
Western Palm Warbler	4	-	14	-
Prairie Warbler	2	-	-	-
Northern Cardinal	-	-	1	-
Painted Bunting	-	1	4	2

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	79	66	145
# of Recaptures	7	9	16
# of Species	21	16	25
Effort (net-hours)	156.5	119.9	276.4
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	54.9	62.6	58.2
# of Nets	30	23	53

2021 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	1,749	969	2718
# of Recaptures	203	121	324
# of Species	56	49	63
Effort (net-hours)	5,584.2	3536.45	9120.65
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	34.9	30.8	33.3
# of Days	40	35	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kristin Attinger (CS)

Kandace Glanville (CS)

Ben Stalheim (LB)

Nate Watkins (CS)

Josh Lefever (LB)

KIBS Second-ever Red-shouldered Hawk

Captain Sam's:

Despite today’s migration forecast looking good, we didn’t quite have as much diversity as we were hoping. We did finally start to getting more new Gray Catbirds, today they nearly equaled the amount of Common Yellowthroats! We had an absolutely gorgeous sunrise and cool temperatures, which made for a terrific combo. On top of that we caught three new first-of-season birds for Captain Sam’s: Blue Grosbeak, House Wren, and Red-shouldered Hawk! I was fortunate enough to band the hawk today, it’s the first I’ve ever banded so it was quite special. Raptors can be quite the handful in the net but Kristin is such a pro she was able to extract her without any help! Since we caught this bird later in the day we had enough tile to take a nice long look at the bird before releasing. It was a hatching year individual, and even so the middle section of the primary feathers were still pale, creating the “window” effect seen while they soar. Naturally with all the excitement around this bird she had to be the haiku subject.

Scouring for food

Windows seen in the bright sky

Confined to our net

You can see the lighter parts of each primary feather that make up the 
"window" effect I mentioned above. While these birds are soaring in the sky the sunlight shines more through these parts of the feathers seemingly creating a "window".

Hatching-year Red-shouldered Hawk

 - Nate

Little Bear:

Although we didn't have anything as exciting as a Red-shouldered Hawk, we still had a very good day of banding up at Little Bear. We caught 91 birds, and had 4 new species for the season- House Wren, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Swainson's Thrush, and Eastern Phoebe. All 4 of these are expected catches at some point during the season, but each one made our morning a little more interesting. I was particularly happy to get the Gnatcatcher, since I've been hearing one around the site nearly every day all season.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
These birds are one the smallest that we're able to band

Eastern Phoebe
This bird was a nice surprise near the end our banding session.
This species over-winters in our area and they only started arriving back into our region a couple days ago.

-Josh

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Red-shouldered Hawk	1	-	-	-
Traill's Flycatcher	2	-	1	-
Eastern Phoebe	-	-	1	-
White-eyed Vireo	4	-	3	-
Red-eyed Vireo	12	-	8	1
Carolina Chickadee	1	-	-	-
Tufted Titmouse	1	-	1	-
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher	-	-	1	-
House Wren	1	-	1	-
Gray Catbird	30	3	12	2
Brown Thrasher	1	-	-	-
Veery	1	-	-	-
Swainson's Thrush	3	-	5	-
Yellow-Breasted Chat	-	-	1	-
Northern Waterthrush	-	-	3	-
Black-and-white Warbler	1	-	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	33	2	24	1
American Redstart	6	-	4	2
Cape May Warbler	-	-	2	-
Yellow Warbler	-	-	5	1
Black-throated Blue Warbler	5	-	-	-
Palm Warbler	-	-	6	-
Prairie Warbler	2	-	-	-
Northern Cardinal	-	1	-	2
Blue Grosbeak	1	-	-	-
Indigo Bunting	1	-	-	-
Painted Bunting	-	-	3	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	106	82	188
# of Recaptures	6	9	15
# of Species	19	19	27
Effort (net-hours)	165	126.5	291.5
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	67.9	71.9	69.6
# of Nets	30	23	-

2021 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	1670	903	2573
# of Recaptures	196	112	308
# of Species	56	49	63
Effort (net-hours)	5427.7	3416.55	8844.25
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	34.4	29.7	32.6
# of Days	39	34	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kristin Attinger (CS)

Kandace Glanville (LB)

Ben Stalheim (LB)

Nate Watkins (CS)

Josh Lefever (LB)

David McLean (CS)