Sunday, September 11, 2022

Is September the new August?

 Captain Sams: 

    Despite August being over we're still feeling the heat at Captain Sam's! The humidity levels have been through the roof these last few days, the last two in the 90-100% humidity. With the rain this week migration forecast maps are showing that the next few days will likely not produce great numbers of birds. That being said very little can stop the force of migration so where we may not have high numbers we could still see some nice diversity with new species perhaps.

    Today this morning while waiting for our first net run we spent some time by the river. Watching the morning flight of species likely coming from the spit and observing the fun critters of the river. I was pleased to spend time watching a blue crab eating a small moon jelly soon to be followed up by the local dolphins. This morning as they cruised by we were able to identify Hook, Koko, and Step based on their dorsal fins!


hot humidity

oxymoronic climate

gives soggy bottoms


- Nate


Little Bear:

Today wasn't expected to be that great. We came out with a high species count than what I originally thought. We had a total of 25 birds and only 7 of them were recaptures. We caught our first of the season for KIBS, Wilson's Warbler and Palm Warbler (western subspecies) and Little Bears first Chuck-will's-widow and Veery!

We almost had a young night heron in our nets during the first net run be it escaped before coming in arms distance from the net. Maybe next time it might stay!

Below I have inserted both an adult and juvenile Green Heron. You can see how different the birds look like compared to each other. I will go in-depth with each photo to explain what to look at. 


adult (top) juvenile (bottom)
you can see that the lines showing both the secondary and primary coverts and the secondary and primary feathers are different from each other. The younger bird will have thick white tips compared to the thin white tips that the adults have. 

adult (left) juvenile (right) 
You can see how the adult has no streaking on the breast compared to the juvenile. The legs are more yellow and if you look closely to the eyes you can see how the adult has more of a redder eye.


Adult (bottom) juvenile (top)
You can see how the adult is more rich in color compared to the dull juvenile. 


Here is a cute photo of the Wilson's Warbler! Check out the cute cap on this young male. So tiny and handsome!


-Kristin 


  Species  Captain SamsLittle Bear
NewRecapsNewRecaps
Chuck-wills-widow
--1-
Green Heron
--1-
White-eyed Vireo
1-1-
Red-eyed Vireo
1---
Carolina Chickadee
-1-1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
--1
Carolina Wren
--
1
Northern Mockingbird
-1
-
Veery
--1-
Ovenbird
431-
Northern Waterthrush
2321
Common Yellowthroat
151-
American Redstart
111-
Yellow Warbler
--3-
Palm Warbler
--1-
Prairie Warbler
21--
Wilson's Warbler
--1-
Northern Cardinal
--12
Painted Bunting3-22


Today's Banding StatsCaptain SamsLittle BearTOTAL
# Birds Banded
15
18
33
# of Recaptures
15
7
22
# of Species
11
16
19
Effort (net-hours)
132
85.1
217.1
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)
22.7
29.4
28.6
# of Nets
30
23
-

2022 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats Captain SamsLittle BearTOTAL
# Birds Banded
574
409
983
# of Recaptures
169
100
269
# of Species
37
33
44
Effort (net-hours)
3562.17
1,644.85
5,207.02
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)
21.8
30.9
24.0
# of Days2618-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)
Kristin Attinger (LB)
Nate Watkins (CS)
Katie Serba (CS)
Brendan Wang (LB) 
Aiden Place (CS)
Maia Nguyen (LB)