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)