Captain Sam's:
Just happy to get back out to banding, we were not expecting to catch 3 first-of-season birds today! Our morning started off with opening the nets amidst our slightly damaged net lanes and trails after the king tide and excessive rain over the last few days. After we got everything set up, Aaron brought back a Clapper Rail from net 15 in the first net run! We put a band on it and admired it for a while, our 98th species banded this year! We got word from Little Bear that they had just caught Chipping Sparrows - species #99 for the year. So we were determined to go spook another species into our nets, so we did - Saltmarsh Sparrow! We waded through the salt marsh, and lucky enough were able to catch 4 Saltmarsh Sparrows in a net on the edge of the marsh at the river. That was species #100 for the season, and then we got a bonus species that we didn't know we would catch today - a Northern Flicker! The tide was especially high today and it rushed in quick, but we remained happy and distracted enough that it wasn't too much of a downer.
Let's see if we can catch more first-of-season species tomorrow too!
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| After hatch-year Saltmarsh Sparrow |
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| Clapper Rail (hatch-year) |
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| Clapper Rail |
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| Hatch-year female Northern Flicker |
-Kandace
Little Bear:
It felt great to be back out at Little Bear after a 4-day hiatus. The king tide and all the rain from the past few days had the station flooded with anywhere from a couple inches to a little over a foot of water, but fortunately the wind was quiet at sunrise and we were able to get all of the nets opened. It felt pretty busy for the first few rounds. We had a good number of Kinglets (both Ruby and Golden-crowned), a few surprising warblers (Prairie and Back-and-white), and we got in on some of the first-of-season action with a couple of Chipping Sparrows.
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| Golden-crowned Kinglet We're having a very good season for this species at Little Bear. The site usually catches 0-3, but had a record setting 9 in 2016. This adult female was our 6th this fall. |
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| Black-and-white Warbler A few Black-and-whites will overwinter on the island, but they are pretty unusual catch this late in the season |
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| Chipping Sparrow These drab sparrows only spend the winter on Kiawah and, though not considered very rare, they are a less than annual capture at either banding site |
After a few good hours of banding, the wind started to pick up and the rising tide became quite noticeable. The water first began encroaching over the beach, merging our lagoon with the ocean. Not long after that, salt water began rushing into the net lanes, and we began closing nets as the water started to reach (then exceeded) knee height around much of the station. We ended up having all the nets shut just as we hit the 5 hour mark for the session. Hopefully today was the worst of the king high-tide that we'll have to deal with, but it'll likely still be a concern for a few more days.
-Josh
| Species | Captain Sam's | Little Bear | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New | Recaps | New | Recaps | |
Clapper Rail | 1 | - | - | - |
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker | - | 1 | - | - |
Northern Flicker | 1 | - | - | - |
Eastern Phoebe | 1 | - | - | - |
Blue-headed Vireo | - | - | 1 | - |
Ruby-crowned Kinglet | 9 | - | 9 | - |
Golden-crowned Kinglet | - | 1 | 2 | - |
Brown Creeper | 1 | - | - | - |
Carolina Wren | - | - | - | 1 |
Gray Catbird | 1 | 9 | 2 | 5 |
Hermit Thrush | - | - | 1 | - |
Chipping Sparrow | - | - | 2 | - |
White-throated Sparrow | 1 | - | - | - |
Saltmarsh Sparrow | 3 | 1 | - | - |
Song Sparrow | 3 | - | - | - |
Swamp Sparrow | 3 | 1 | - | - |
Black-and-white Warbler | - | - | 1 | - |
Orange-crowned Warbler | 1 | - | 1 | - |
Yellow-rumped Warbler | 23 | 7 | 9 | - |
Prairie Warbler | - | - | 1 | - |
Northern Cardinal | - | - | 1 | 1 |
| Painted Bunting | 1 | - | - | 1 |
| Today's Banding Stats | Captain Sam's | Little Bear | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| # Birds Banded | 49 | 30 | 70 |
| # of Recaptures | 21 | 8 | 29 |
| # of Species | 15 | 13 | 22 |
| Effort (net-hours) | 187.5 | 98.65 | 286.15 |
| Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) | 36.8 | 38.5 | 34.6 |
| # of Nets | 30 | 23 | 53 |
| 2021 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats | Captain Sam's | Little Bear | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| # Birds Banded | 4098 | 2949 | 7,047 |
| # of Recaptures | 949 | 527 | 1,476 |
| # of Species | 88 | 79 | 101 |
| Effort (net-hours) | 11,121 | 7,516.25 | 18,637.25 |
| Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) | 45.4 | 46.2 | 45.7 |
| # of Days | 80 | 71 | - |
Banding Staff
