An Abnormal KIBS First -- WHIB a little bit of luck

 Captain Sam's:

It was an abnormally warm November day which might’ve been part of the reason our totals for the day were so low. The wind was mild so it seemed like an alright start to the day, but we had a continuous string of 3-4 bird net runs instead of what we like to see about 5-10 or more! We’re trying to reach 5,000 newly banded birds down at Captain Sam’s for the season, and days like today make it much tougher to get there. We need to band approximately 45 new birds each day to meet that goal before we leave. We did have a new species for KIBS today and that was White Ibis! A bird that even Aaron hasn’t banded before until today. During our lull he had this bananas idea to try and slowly walk some ibis towards a net and rush them. It worked so much better than I thought it would. We did only catch one but so many others were tantalizingly close! We were able to process this bird and figure out that it was an after-second year male, can’t say for certain the exact age but older than two years! We also had a really good flock of Tree Swallows today and set up a net with no luck but fingers crossed for tomorrow!

Marsh madness I say

An interesting method

Not a silly goose

 

Aaron holding his freshly banded White Ibis. Such a neat KIBS first!

White Ibis wing shot.

- Nate

Little Bear:

At Little Bear, we didn't have the good fortune of catching a KIBS first. We did however manage to band our 3,000th bird of the season. After coming close yesterday, it felt like a sure thing that we would reach the arbitrary milestone. After 1 net run, we had found ourselves at 2,999 newly banded birds, and we were eager to see what the milestone species would be. However, in the most Little-Bearish way, we were given few choices as only 1 new bird was caught the next round. Josh placed the 3,000th band on a hatch-year female Yellow-rumped Warbler. Which for November, is about as fitting as it can be. For the rest of the day we hoped and prayed for a species that would give us more to talk about, but it never came to fruition. 

For the first time in over 3 years, Little Bear has banded this many birds, and hopefully, this is a trend that continues in the future. The habitat has changed a lot at this location, and we are hoping the birds will continue to utilize this space for years to come.

-Ben

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
White Ibis	1	-	-	-
Sharp-shinned Hawk	-	1	-	-
House Wren	1	-	-	-
Gray Catbird	2	5	2	5
Hermit Thrush	1	2	-	-
House Finch	-	1	-	-
Song Sparrow	1	-	-	-
Swamp Sparrow	-	1	1	-
Eastern Towhee	1	-	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	-	-	1	-
Orange-crowned Warbler	1	1	-	-
(Myrtle) Yellow-rumped Warbler Ruby-crowned Kinglet	13 1	1 -	7 -	2 -

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	23	11	34
# of Recaptures	11	7	18
# of Species	10	4	12
Effort (net-hours)	180	98.6	278.6
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	18.9	18.3	18.7
# of Nets	30	22	52

2021 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	4229	3006	7235
# of Recaptures	1027	559	1586
# of Species	91	79	103
Effort (net-hours)	11851.50	7880.55	19732
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	44.8	45.2	44.7
# of Days	83	74	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kandace Glanville (CS)

Nate Watkins (CS)

Kristin Attinger (CS)

Josh Lefever (LB)

Ben Stalheim (LB)