The forecast did not predict any "snow" today.

 Captain Sams: 

The crazy winds from yesterday finally died down, which really helped us this morning. We had another pretty big day of banding with 113 new birds banded and 8 recaptures. We even had one first-of-season, a House Wren! Some other notable birds were a Prothonotary Warbler (which we haven't had in awhile) and an after-hatch year Gray Catbird, which may not seem that exciting, but every single other individual was a hatch year so it was nice to look at the difference between the two ages. There was also a very small Yellow-breasted Chat. We had two today and the second one was so small that Aaron didn't even realize it was a Yellow-breasted Chat at first. Once we got it back to the station and banded/processed it, we realized just how much smaller than the first individual it was. It weighed 10 g less and its wing length was almost 7 mm shorter. We don't know why this is, but it more than likely is just two birds on near-opposite ends of the spectrum of size variation within the species. Hopefully, we'll continue to be this busy, but we'll see what the next few days bring. 

-Katie 

Little Bear:

Talk about a great day! I was sad that LB could not be ran yesterday due to the wind but at least I got to finally get go back out to CS. It was nice to not deal with to much "sticky mud". I thought our station would be a tad bit more busy this morning but having 66 birds is just as wonderful as just 1 bird. We added 2 new species for LB and one of them is a first for KIBS! For some reason, I have been lucky enough to experience a great season filled with wading birds. We have a total of 4 Green Herons, Great Egret and now.......Snowy Egret! Who would have guess this would be the year for unique catches, not me!! 

We were working on one of our net runs when I told Maia, "hey look at those Great Blue Herons flying down to where our nets are, maybe we might catch one!" As I was walking up to my first net, I saw a flash of white and knew it was good, and it was! A Snowy Egret was sitting in net 5. Net 5 has caught at the most herons/egrets this year, something must be drawing them into that area for some reason. We didn't even have any water hanging around our nets. 

I was so excited that I get to experience this with Maia. We both got to see how cute it was and also got to experience that sharp beak and toes. After some "cute" photos, we released the bird. I don't think it will be back near our nets for a while. 

The shocked look of being captured in our nets. You can also see how dry the ground is as well.

The nice firm hold on the bill allows the bird to not try to stab anyone. They are extremely pointy and sharp and can cause injuries if not safely controlled. 

You can age Snowy Egrets based on the amount of yellow in their feet. The main thing to look for is the difference in ages on feathers but other key characteristics are fun to check out too! Adult Snowy Egrets would have nice black legs with a nice glove like appearance on the feet. This bird here, you can see how the yellow goes up the legs. It still has the "glove" look but on the back side of the legs and going up to the tarsus (long bone after the foot) the yellow is still present. This bird is just a young fellow that managed to find our nest.

Our second new bird for the day was a late season Louisiana Waterthrush. I wasn't expecting this bird to be in the nets either but it was definitely a treat to have and to compare to a Northern Waterthrush. They are so alike, yet so different in many ways. 

-Kristin

Species	Captain Sams		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Snowy Egret	-	-	1	-
Downy Woodpecker	-	-	-	1
White-eyed Vireo	5	2	2	-
Red-eyed Vireo	3	-	-	-
House Wren	1	-	-	-
Carolina Wren	1	-	-	1
Veery	1	-	2	-
Swainson's Thrush	1	-	-	-
Gray Catbird	14	1	5	1
Brown Thrasher	-	-	1	-
Yellow-breasted Chat	2	-	1	-
Ovenbird	2	-	-	-
Louisiana Waterthrush	-	-	1	-
Northern Waterthrush	5	1	6	3
Black-and-white Warbler	2	-	1	-
Prothonotary Warbler	1	-	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	49	1	13	-
American Redstart	19	1	8	-
Magnolia Warbler	1	-	-	-
Yellow Warbler	2	-	3	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	1	-	-	-
Palm Warbler (western subspecies)	-	-	3	-
Prairie Warbler	1	-	1	-
Northern Cardinal	1	1	1	3
Painted Bunting	1	1	3	4

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	113	53	166
# of Recaptures	8	13	21
# of Species	19	18	27
Effort (net-hours)	144	95.85	241.45
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	84	68.9	77.4
# of Nets	30	23	-

2022 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	1,411	880	2,291
# of Recaptures	275	195	470
# of Species	47	43	57
Effort (net-hours)	5,324.87	2,704.05	8,028.92
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	31.7	39.75	34.4
# of Days	38	30	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kristin Attinger (LB)

Nate Watkins (CS)

Katie Serba (CS)
Brendan Wang (CS) 

Aidan Place 

Maia Nguyen (LB)