August Showers Bring…Rare Birds?

 Captain Sam's: 

Since this is also my first time writing the blog, I will do a little intro as well. My name is Katie, another new member of the KIBS crew. I am so excited to be here and am looking forward to a great season!

We got a little bit later start than normal today due to some rain early this morning. However, the sky cleared up and we had nothing but sun and a nice breeze for the rest of the day. After clearing up the nets from all the rain, we were open for business. The birds weren’t quite as active as the first few days of the season, but we still banded 14 new birds and 4 recaptures of 12 species. Even with these lower numbers, we still had some really great birds including a young female Prothonotary Warbler (which was a neat comparison to the adult male we banded yesterday), a Yellow Warbler, and our first of season Carolina Chickadee. Although, there was one bird that really stole the show today and that was a Black-billed Cuckoo! This species is not only rare for the station, but also for the area. Only four other individuals have been banded sat KIBS since 2012, including 2 at Captain Sam’s and 2 at Little Bear. This bird was especially exciting for me as it was my first time ever seeing one! Through careful examination of the wings, we determined that this individual was a hatching-year bird based off of its flight feather molt. This is a particularly cryptic bird that is more often heard than seen since they typically sit motionless for long periods of time, but hopefully as migration continues to ramp up, we will either band or at least see a few more.

-Katie

Today’s star of the show!

How we aged the bird using flight feather molting and molt limits

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Mourning Dove	1	-	-	-
Black-billed Cuckoo	1	-	-	-
Downy Woodpecker	-	1	-	-
Red-eyed Vireo	1	-	-	-
Carolina Chickadee	1	-	-	-
Northern Mockingbird	-	1	-	-
Northern Waterthrush	3	1	-	-
Prothonotary Warbler	1	-	-	-
Yellow Warbler	1	-	-	-
Prairie Warbler	2	-	-	-
Northern Cardinal	-	1	-	-
Painted Bunting	3	-	-	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	14	-	14
# of Recaptures	4	-	4
# of Species	12	-	12
Effort (net-hours)	127.5	-	127.5
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	14.1	-	14.1
# of Nets	30	21	51

2022 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	129	-	129
# of Recaptures	48	-	48
# of Species	24	-	24
Effort (net-hours)	679.5	-	679.5
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	26.0	-	26.0
# of Days	5	-	5

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kristin Attinger (CS)

Nate Watkins (CS)

Katie Serba (CS)
Brendan Wang (CS) 

Aidan Place (CS)

Maia Nguyen (CS)