Tuesday, October 26, 2021

A Blissful Day at KIBS

 Captain Sam's:

It was quite windy out on the spit today. Usually west winds would have brought us a lot birds but unfortunately, rain in the northeastern part of the US grounded most of the migrants that would have come our way. Hopefully some of that rain will clear out for tonight as we are expecting good conditions again for migrating birds. The radar image at 8:10pm stills show the Nor'easter spinning in the New England states but there are some birds moving south behind it from Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky. The predominant winds will be shifting from the west to the north overnight, which should set us up for a pretty good morning tomorrow. Fingers crossed!  


Ben and I had an okay morning at Captain Sam's with 33 new birds and 20 recaptures.  Gray Catbirds, Common Yellowthroats, and Yellow-rumped Warblers made up most of what we captured today.  I sometimes joke that there are three seasons during fall migration banding at KIBS:  yellowthroat season, catbird season, and yellow-rump season. Yellowthroat season starts at the end of August and runs through the end of October with most of them coming through in September. Catbird season starts up mid to late September and will run through mid November. At that time most of the catbirds on site are winter residents. The end of October is the beginning of yellow-rump season. Their numbers generally peak in early November but continue to move through the rest of November. In most years, those three species make up between 50-60% of all birds banded at KIBS.    

-Aaron


Little Bear:

Today was a lot busier than expected. We had a total of 69 birds with only 10 of them being recaptures. We finally got our Orange-Crowned Warbler for LB which was absolutely adorable! We also had a really handsome young male Cape May Warbler. I was so excited to see such a colorful bird for the day!

I am also extremely excited to see what tomorrow will hold! I'm hoping for both sites to pull through and get new species and lots of birds. This nice cooler weather is a treat for sure. It's a banders treat for a nice trick (meaning lots of birds for us).

Cape May Warbler

Orange-crowned Warbler



-Kristin

  Species  Captain Sam'sLittle Bear
NewRecapsNewRecaps
Yellow-billed Cuckoo
--1-
White-eyed Vireo
--1-
Carolina Chickadee
-1--
House Wren
1-1-
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
11--
Gray Catbird
1415265
Eastern Towhee
2---
Swamp Sparrow
--132
Song Sparrow
---1
White-crowned Sparrow
--1-
Orange-crowned Warbler
--1-
Common Yellowthroat
5161
Cape May Warbler
1-1-
Northern Parula
1---
Black-throated Blue Warbler
1-2-
Yellow-rumped Warbler (myrtle)
6-3-
Palm Warbler (western)
--1-
Northern Cardinal
-211
Indigo Bunting
1---
Painted Bunting
--1-

Today's Banding StatsCaptain Sam'sLittle BearTOTAL
# Birds Banded
33
59
92
# of Recaptures
20
10
30
# of Species
12
15
20
Effort (net-hours)
156
102.4
258.4
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)
34
67.4
47.2
# of Nets
30
23
53

2021 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats Captain Sam'sLittle BearTOTAL
# Birds Banded
3,567
2,696
6,263
# of Recaptures
701
414
1,115
# of Species
78
74
91
Effort (net-hours)
9,576.65
6,651.55
16,228.2
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)
44.6
46.8
45.5
# of Days6963-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)
Kristin Attinger (LB)
Kandace Glanville (LB)
Ben Stalheim (CS)