All Together for a Captain Sam's Big Day | But Still Searching for Species 105...

 Captain Sam's:

Today was the first day all year that the six of us were banding in the same place. The plethora of hands made it easier to handle the unusually busy first net run we had. A few paces into my first net check, the radio goes off and Aaron says he has about 10 birds in his first net. Thinking to myself that that's gonna make for a good day, he outdoes himself at the next net by reporting around 25 Yellow-rumped Warblers. As Kandace and I made our way around to Aaron, we picked up quite a few birds ourselves, which made for a banding table wriggling with new birds. Even thought most of them were Yellow-rumped Warblers, it was especially nice to see the large quantities of them in our nets as more often I have seen them chipping from the sky as they pass us over.

Warblers weren't the only things on the move today. We had quite the day with the sparrows as well. While both Song and Swamp are regulars, the Field and Clay-colored Sparrows we caught today are certainly not. The Clay-colored was the 2nd of the season for us, which is quite a rare catch, especially this far into November. With all of us around to appreciate the birds, it made for a fantastic morning. 

Hatch-year Unknown Clay-colored Sparrow

 Tomorrow will be the last day of banding for most of us, but we will all be keeping a close eye on what Aaron catches through the end of the season. We are still in search of a record-breaking 105th species, and it's anyone's guess what that might be. I'm holding out hope that we will get it with us all around, but either way it has been an incredible year. Thank you to everyone who makes it possible for us to conduct the work we do, and thanks to everyone on the crew for a fantastic year. Until next time...

-Ben

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Eastern Phoebe	1	-	-	-
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	5	1	-	-
Golden-crowned Kinglet	1	-	-	-
House Wren	2	1	-	-
Hermit Thrush	2	1	-	-
Gray Catbird	2	5	-	-
Song Sparrow	2	-	-	-
Swamp Sparrow	-	2	-	-
Field Sparrow	1	-	-	-
Clay-colored Sparrow	1	-	-	-
Orange-crowned Warbler	-	1	-	-
(Myrtle) Yellow-rumped Warbler	63	4	-	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	80	-	80
# of Recaptures	15	-	15
# of Species	12	-	12
Effort (net-hours)	177	-	177
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	53.7	-	53.7
# of Nets	30	-	30

2021 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	4402	3103	7505
# of Recaptures	1100	589	1689
# of Species	91	79	104
Effort (net-hours)	12546.1	8332.6	20878.7
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	43.9	44.3	44.0
# of Days	88	78	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kandace Glanville (CS)

Nate Watkins (CS)

Kristin Attinger (CS)

Josh Lefever (CS)

Ben Stalheim (CS)