Captain Sam's:
Expecting another extremely slow day, today's banding yielded a few more birds than we thought we would get. We caught 15 birds today, which isn't too terrible for a hot August day. The first net run just after sunrise started the day off well, with 6 birds - and one of those was an Eastern Screech-owl! It was a hatch-year rufous morph, and still had some fluffy feathers on its head, just like the one we caught 10 days ago on 8/19/2021. Unfortunately it managed to wiggle away while it was being weighed, so we weren't able to get a photo of this one. Hopefully we'll catch more as the season goes on!
-Kandace
Little Bear:
Walking out to Little Bear today, Josh and I had low expectations, but were eager to see how the day would turn out. To our surprise, on the first net run, we each found multiple birds of a few different species. This was such a nice surprise from the day before that even processing these few numbers felt like a treat.
We recaptured a Traill's Flycatcher and measured everything to key it to its specific species, but unfortunately, the bird fell somewhere in between the marks for Willow and Alder Flycatcher, Although we were both fairly certain it was a Willow, it is best to leave it as Traill's unless we are able to definitively identify the bird.
We caught a few migrant species like Northern Waterthrush, American Redstart, Ovenbird, and Common Yellowthroat. These were all somewhat unexpected given the direction of the winds these last few days, but much appreciated.
The Northern Cardinals and Carolina Wrens continue to fill up the nets. Dominated by hatch-year birds, I am loving the chance to appreciate these species while I can.
There are still quite a few resident and breeding species that we have yet to get in the nets at Little Bear. A tantalizingly close Eastern Towhee and Blue-gray Gnatcatcher come to mind right away. Hopefully, the station starts to welcome newcomers on their journey south and also attract the local birds who have seen us around the entire season already.
-Ben
| Species | Captain Sam's | Little Bear | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New | Recaps | New | Recaps | |
Eastern Screech-owl | 1 | - | - | - |
Traill's Flycatcher | - | - | - | 1 |
White-eyed Vireo | - | 1 | - | - |
Red-eyed Vireo | 2 | - | - | - |
Carolina Wren | 1 | 3 | 2 | - |
Ovenbird | - | - | - | 1 |
Northern Waterthrush | - | - | 2 | - |
Common Yellowthroat | - | - | 1 | - |
American Redstart | - | - | 1 | - |
Yellow Warbler | 1 | - | - | - |
Prairie Warbler | 1 | - | - | - |
Northern Cardinal | 1 | - | 1 | 2 |
Painted Bunting | 2 | 2 | 3 | - |
| Today's Banding Stats | Captain Sam's | Little Bear | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| # Birds Banded | 9 | 10 | 19 |
| # of Recaptures | 6 | 4 | 10 |
| # of Species | 8 | 8 | 13 |
| Effort (net-hours) | 112.50 | 77.5 | 190 |
| Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) | 13.3 | 18.1 | 15.3 |
| # of Nets | 30 | 23 | 53 |
| 2021 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats | Captain Sam's | Little Bear | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| # Birds Banded | 258 | 141 | 399 |
| # of Recaptures | 85 | 27 | 112 |
| # of Species | 34 | 24 | 38 |
| Effort (net-hours) | 1,908 | 910.35 | 2,818.35 |
| Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) | 18.0 | 18.5 | 18.1 |
| # of Days | 15 | 9 | - |
Banding Staff
