MODO Molt

 Captain Sams:

We've been experiencing north-ish winds for a while now which has kept temperatures cool but a shift in the wind from the south warmed things up today.  It was nearly 70 degrees this morning at 6:00am!  The rain stayed to the north and west of the coast so I didn't have to worry about that but the wind picked up around 10:00am.  As a result I had to close some of the dunes nets due to the wind whipping off the ocean.  

Because of the weather, I didn't expect to have many birds today and that hypothesis proved to be correct ending the day with only 15 new birds and 9 recaptures.  A couple of highlights from today include our 5th Blue-headed Vireo of the season and our 4th Mourning Dove. 

Blue-headed Vireo (Hatch-year, sex unknown)

   

Mourning Dove (Hatch-year)

Mourning Doves have a prolonged or protracted molt that can last several weeks to several months.  Today's bird still had a few juvenile feathers remaining including the outer two primary coverts (upper arrow) and the outer 3 primaries (lower bracket).  The juvenile primary coverts are brown with a buffy tip compared to darker replaced primary coverts.

-Aaron        

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Mourning Dove	1	-	-	-
Blue-headed Vireo	1	-	-	-
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	-	3	-	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	1	-	-
House Wren	-	1	-	-
White-throated Sparrow	-	1	-	-
Swamp Sparrow	1	1	-	-
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)	12	2	-	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	15	-	-
# of Recaptures	9	-	-
# of Species	8	-	-
Effort (net-hours)	138.5	-	-
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	17.3	-	-
# of Nets	30	23	-

2022 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sam's	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	5,589	2,955	8,544
# of Recaptures	1,484	701	2,185
# of Species	86	83	100
Effort (net-hours)	14,829.0	6,985.05	21,814.05
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	47.7	52.3	49.2
# of Days	98	76	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)