Beautiful sunrises, eccentric House Wrens, fishy puddles, IT'S ALL IN HERE!!

 Captain Sams: 

The mornings have been pleasant the past few days. This particular morning was particularly pleasant for no apparent reason. The cool temperatures have made our morning sits on the river pine extra blissful. I jumped the gun a bit with the sweater, but one can never be too cozy. Today we watched a bonnethead corralling its prey as the shorebirds set off on their morning commute across the marsh. It was a familiar day.

Katie, Nate, and I processed 40 birds today, with exciting diversity. A Chuck-Will's Widow, a Brown Thrasher, a Yellow-billed Cuckoo, and the routine crowd of Common Yellowthroats were all included in our 18 species day. 

The morning glow adorns the widow of old Chuck Will

Since our team worked like a well-oiled machine (as it does), we were able to repair some nets in preparation for the next big cold front day. We are staying proactive and working hard so that you, the beautiful reader of this beautiful blog, get the very best in the wide world of bird banding blogs.

I leave you with an image taken just before dawn, on the dunes of Captain Sam's Spit, with the waning moon just about to wane as far as it can possibly wane. 

I like to call these toenail moons

-Brendan

Little Bear:

We ended the day with 39 birds total of 12 different species. Quite a few of those were recaps, 13 to be exact! With not much moving through right now, we've been catching the same birds who've been sticking around the area, including some very molty Painted Buntings. The water is continuing to evaporate at Little Bear, leaving us with just a couple mushy puddles as well as a rotting fish smell 😧. We also observed egret footprints and a Great Egret flying out from a small puddle near net 6, where all the remaining fish have been stuck. Maybe in the next couple of days we could catch another heron or egret while that puddle is still there—fingers crossed!

We also had our first House Wrens for this site. Two hatch-year birds were caught, and while there are a number of different ways to age them, we ended up looking at the "eccentric molt limit" on one of them. Instead of molting outwards starting from the innermost primary (1st), the wren pictured below started growing new primaries in from its 7th. The outer primaries look a lot darker and shiny overall, and the rachis (center shaft of the feather) is a lot darker as well. 

House Wren eccentric molt (blue are new primaries while red is old)

- Maia

Species	Captain Sams		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Yellow-billed Cuckoo	1	-	-	-
Chuck-will's Widow	1	-	-	-
Downy Woodpecker	-	1	-	-
White-eyed Vireo	1	1	-	-
Red-eyed Vireo	2	1	-	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	1	-	-
Gray Catbird	4	1	4	1
Brown Thrasher	1	-	-	-
Northern Mockingbird	1	-	-	-
Veery	1	-	-	-
Yellow-breasted Chat	1	-	-	-
Ovenbird	1	-	-	-
Northern Waterthrush	1	1	4	1
Common Yellowthroat	11	-	2	-
American Redstart	4	-	1	1
Magnolia Warbler	-	1	-	-
Yellow Warbler	-	-	2	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	-	-	1	-
Palm Warbler (Western)	1	-	4	-
Prairie Warbler	1	-	-	-
Northern Cardinal	-	-	1	-
Painted Bunting	-	-	3	9

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	33	26	59
# of Recaptures	7	13	20
# of Species	18	12	22
Effort (net-hours)	135	80	215
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	29.6	48.8	36.74
# of Nets	30	23	-

2022 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	1442	906	2348
# of Recaptures	282	208	490
# of Species	47	44	57
Effort (net-hours)	5459.87	2,784.05	8,243.92
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	31.6	40.01	34.4
# of Days	39	31	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kristin Attinger (LB)

Nate Watkins (CS)

Katie Serba (CS)
Brendan Wang (CS) 

Aidan Place (LB)

Maia Nguyen (LB)