What's in the sky?

Captain Sam's:

We had another consistent day of banding with 23 new birds and 15 recaps. A highlight was a recap Downy Woodpecker because we've caught this individual multiple times throughout the season so its been really cool to watch the subtle changes in this bird as it grows. Since it was a slower day and the weather was so beautiful, I decided to spend time in between net runs down by the river sitting in the pine tree. The breeze was so refreshing and I had great views of two Oystercatchers, a group of Double-crested Cormorants diving and feeding down the river, and the dolphins feeding along the river bank. I am definitely going to miss being able to do that after the season, but we are all enjoying it while we can.

-Katie 

Little Bear:

Today was definitely a better day than yesterday. We ended with a total of 19 birds. Only 5 of them were recaptures and 14 were newly banded. It was nice to see a species diversity as well. We had a total of 10! 

Above is a nice comparison photo of an adult and hatch year swamp sparrow. On the right is the adult (after hatch year) and the left is the hatch year bird. You can see how the adult has more gray that is visible on the face and overall lighter. The hatcher (left) has a more yellow/green wash over the face. It is nice to get both ages in the hand to see how much of a difference appearance can be. 

On another fun note, as we were driving down to our station this morning, I saw something in the sky. It was extremely bright and was moving quiet quickly. I had to stop and check it out because I have never saw such a thing before. It left such a big trail in the sky that was so cool to admire! It lasted for no longer than a few minutes but it was something that was interesting to experience! I looked up possible launches that might have been scheduled around but did not see any information but some information about asteroids that would be passing by. So if correct, this was an asteroid that was spotted. 

-Kristin

Species	Captain Sams		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Downy Woodpecker	-	1	-	-
House Wren	-	-	1	-
Carolina Wren	-	-	-	1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	1	-	1	-
Gray Catbird	-	6	2	2
Swamp Sparrow	2	2	2	1
Song Sparrow	-	3	2	-
Eastern Towhee	-	-	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	1	-	-	-
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)	19	2	3	-
Orange-crowned Warbler	-	1	-	-
Northern Cardinal	-	-	1	1
Painted Bunting	-	-	1	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	23	14	37
# of Recaptures	15	5	20
# of Species	8	10	13
Effort (net-hours)	150	86.25	236.25
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	25.3	22.03	47.33
# of Nets	30	23	-

2022 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	4913	2,911	7824
# of Recaptures	1197	678	1875
# of Species	83	83	97
Effort (net-hours)	12109.57	6,622.05	18,731.62
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	50.5	54.2	51.8
# of Days	80	71	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given 

Kristin Attinger (LB)

Nate Watkins (CS)

Katie Serba (CS)
Brendan Wang (CS) 

Aidan Place (CS)

Maia Nguyen (LB)