A Spooktacular Day

 Captain Sam's:

The daily routine at Captain Sam's is me being overly excited and optimistic that the Tree Swallow flock will fly near the nets we have set up. This morning we watched close to a thousand birds feeding on a few wax myrtle trees further down the island, and I was increasingly excited for them to come closer. Alas, they kept their distance and made us watch their fascinating displays.

Today was Halloween! And it was frightfully dull on the bird front. Of our 56 birds caught, 40 of them were already banded. And of those 40, 33 were catbirds. It was like a broken record for most of the morning, where every bird in a net was another recap catbird. Still fascinating to see the individuals that stay in the area.

We did manage to catch a first-of-season, and just one of a handful ever caught at KIBS. That would be a Red-winged Blackbird. The last few days we have had 1 or 2 land in the tall trees above our banding table, and today we finally got one in the net. This adult female was a stunning bird to see up close. The orange and black tinge to feathers was very fitting on our Halloween banding session.

After hatch-year Red-winged Blackbird

-Ben

Little Bear:

Today was an oddly slow day at the station. We were expecting it to be at least a little busier than yesterday. Thankfully it’s autumn now and the weather is pleasant enough to sit around outside. We were able to do some net repair while we were out there and enjoy some of the other facets of the natural world, like the Monarchs! Our main excitement for the day came from the return of a Coopers Hawk. Early in the morning he ended up in one of the nets and got out, leaving behind his rodent breakfast sitting in the net. I took the deceased rodent out of the net and put it below hoping that the silly Cooper’s Hawk would be silly enough to try and go get it. I was right except he did it without ending up in the net. I was quite surprised when I went to check the net to find the rodent missing and no Cooper’s Hawk. However, much later in the morning, Josh and I were coming back from a net run via a shortcut we’ve got and came up on that same net. In that net was finally our Cooper’s Hawk! A very nice hatch year male! A first for me in the hand since I’ve been a bander! Afterwards we processed our other birds and went to close up the nets for the day. I had already written a haiku about Monarchs today or I would’ve made one about our Cooper’s Hawk!

Twittering flight fights

Monarch e monarch

In the end who wins

Since this is a hatching year bird there aren't any cool molt limits to look for sadly!

Spread-tail shot of our HY male Cooper's Hawk

- Nate

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Yellow-billed Cuckoo	-	-	1	-
Cooper's Hawk	-	-	1	-
Tufted Titmouse	-	-	1	-
Eastern Phoebe	-	-	-	1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	1	2	1	-
House Wren	1	-	1	1
Hermit Thrush	1	-	-	-
Gray Catbird	1	33	3	12
Brown Thrasher	-	-	1	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	1	-	-
Carolina Wren	-	-	1	-
Song Sparrow	2	-	-	-
Red-winged Blackbird	1	-	-	-
Ovenbird	-	-	-	1
Orange-crowned Warbler	1	-	-	-
Cape May Warbler	-	-	1	-
Yellow-rumped Warbler	6	3	-	1
Palm Warbler	1	-	1	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	-	-	-	1
Common Yellowthroat	1	-	-	-
Northern Cardinal	-	1	-	-
Painted Bunting	-	-	1	1

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	16	12	28
# of Recaptures	40	19	59
# of Species	11	16	23
Effort (net-hours)	152.95	132.25	285.2
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	36.6	23.4	30.5
# of Nets	30	23	53

2021 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	3775	2844	6619
# of Recaptures	837	488	1325
# of Species	81	77	94
Effort (net-hours)	10186	7126.5	17312.5
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	45.3	46.8	45.9
# of Days	74	67	-

Banding Staff

Kristin Attinger (CS)

Kandace Glanville (CS)

Ben Stalheim (CS)

Nate Watkins (LB)

Josh Lefever (LB)