A Veery Productive Day

 Captain Sams: 

Both birds and mosquitoes were plentiful at Captain's Sam's this morning, and as usual the crew started the day by watching the sunrise and dolphins in the Kiawah River. We ended the day with 42 new captures and 7 recaptures of 13 different species. Our highlight of the day, was this season's first Veery! We could tell this individual was a bird that hatched this year, because it still had buffy tips on its wing coverts. Soon after, we also captured the season's first Ruby-throated Hummingbird, a hatch-year male. 

Another interesting capture from today was this Red-eyed Vireo with a "cross bill". Bill deformities such as this can be caused by a number of different things including disease, genetic mutation, or injury.

Red-eyed Vireo (pic by Brendan Wang)

Today, Aaron also set up an AudioMoth, which is an audio-logger that will hopefully pick up birds' calls as they pass through during migration. 

- Maia

Little Bear:

With the north winds overnight, Little Bear was extremely productive this morning. Overwhelmingly the most abundant birds were Northern Waterthrush with a remarkable 21 caught. However, the highlight of the morning was, without a doubt, a hatch year, female Cooper's Hawk that hit the nets partway through the morning. 

Female Cooper's Hawk

In most raptors, the females are larger than the males and Cooper's Hawks are no exception. In the hand this bird seemed massive! She was also particularly feisty, clawing and biting us a few times as we struggled to get the band around her tarsus. A very impressive bird to hold.

This was an especially exciting moment for me as I have never had the opportunity to band a raptor before!

Cooper's Hawk Upperwing

-Aidan

Species	Captain Sams		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Cooper's Hawk	-	-	1	-
Trail's Flycatcher	1	-	1	-
Red-eyed Vireo	6	-	2	-
White-eyed Vireo	1	-	-	-
Veery	1	-	-	-
Yellow-breasted Chat	1	-	-	-
Ovenbird	1	-	-	-
Northern Waterthrush	15	1	21	-
Black-and-white Warbler	-	-	1	-
Prothonotary Warbler	1	-	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	8	-	5	-
American Redstart	4	1	2	-
Prairie Warbler	3	2	1	-
Carolina Wren	-	1	-	2
Northern Cardinal	-	2	-	1
Painted Bunting	-	-	3	5

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	42	38	80
# of Recaptures	7	8	15
# of Species	13	12	16
Effort (net-hours)	137.75	94.3	232.05
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	35.6	48.8	40.94
# of Nets	30	23	-

2022 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	311	216	527
# of Recaptures	112	56	167
# of Species	33	26	38
Effort (net-hours)	2263.17	868.75	3,127.2
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	18.7	31.8	22.2
# of Days	16	9	25

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kristin Attinger (LB)

Nate Watkins (CS)

Katie Serba (CS)
Brendan Wang (CS) 

Aidan Place (LB)

Maia Nguyen (CS)