I Like to Smell the Birds

  Captain Sams: 

Today began with a brief rush of birds but quickly fizzled out into a slow day. Our most caught species was yellow-rumped warbler (Myrtle). This species has quickly become one of my favorites to band, as they have nice molt limits, are able to be sexed at any age, and they smell quite nice.

They smell like a comfortable leather couch in a fire-lit room.

Pictured above are two myrtle warblers, male on the left and female on the right. Both are hatch-year birds; we can tell the male is on the left based on the blue-gray in the lesser and greater coverts and the large black centers on the uppertail coverts. The female's lesser and greater coverts have much more brown, and the uppertail coverts have less black in the uppertail. 

Yellow-rumped warblers are winter residents here in South Carolina. They often form large foraging flocks, so keep your eyes out for that bright flash of yellow and enjoy watching them gorge on winter berries. 

-Brendan

Little Bear:

Today was another rather slow day with only 38 birds banded-- the kind of totals we were getting in August! However, the lingering chill in the air reminded us that it very much isn't August anymore and, in fact, Fall is well upon us. Another reminder of the changing seasons was the banding highlight of today: two Golden-crowned Kinglets! These tiny ping-pong balls are almost overwhelmingly cute in the hand. They're so small and feel fragile that it seems amazing that they can survive the winter even here in South Carolina. Despite their looks however, they're incredibly hardy birds, wintering as far north as Newfoundland!

Golden-crowned Kinglet

-Aidan

Species	Captain Sams		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Common Ground Dove	-	1	-	-
Golden-crowned Kinglet	-	-	2	-
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	7	-	1	-
Carolina Wren	-	1	2	-
House Wren	1	-	-	-
Gray Catbird	15	9	4	15
Song Sparrow	1	-	-	-
Swamp Sparrow	4	-	3	-
Orange-crowned Warbler	-	-	1	-
Ovenbird	1	-	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	11	1	2	-
American Redstart	1	1	-	-
Palm Warbler (Western)	3	-	-	-
Palm Warbler (Yellow)	1	-	-	-
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)	32	-	5	-
Northern Waterthrush	-	-	-	1
Northern Cardinal	-	-	-	1
Painted Bunting	-	1	-	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	77	20	97
# of Recaptures	14	17	32
# of Species	13	10	18
Effort (net-hours)	180	90.2	270.2
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	50.6	41	47.7
# of Nets	30	23	-

2022 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	4137	2,618	6,755
# of Recaptures	1015	556	1,571
# of Species	77	74	91
Effort (net-hours)	9672.3	4,989.75	14,682.32
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	53.3	63.6	56.7
# of Days	64	55	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kristin Attinger (LB)

Nate Watkins (CS)

Katie Serba (LB)
Brendan Wang (CS) 

Aidan Place (LB)

Maia Nguyen (CS)