Little Bear VS Captain Sam's: the comeback edition

 Captain Sams:

Today was a fairly busy day while we had the Kiawah Island Conservancy Group watch the action. There was a flood of Common Yellowthroats, but within that, we got a first of the season Acadian Flycatcher, 3 Black-throated Blue Warblers, and a Blue-Grey Gnatcatcher. The group especially enjoyed an adult male American Redstart, adult male Yellow Warbler, and a couple Gray Catbirds. With the wind whipping the nets, and the birds slowing down, we closed around 11:30. Looking at another good batch tomorrow!

Adult Male Yellow Warbler

-Camille

Little Bear:

Today was a lot better than what I have predicted with the winds exceeding a little more gusty due the the tropical storm off the coast. We ended our day with a total of 113 birds! Out of those 113 only 7 of them were recaptures. We started the morning thinking it would be slow and not a very productive day. Once we opened our nets, I saw a few birds start coming down in groups. After our first run with only about 10 birds, I was thinking it was going to be a tad busier, maybe ending the day with about 30 birds. As we continued to check our nets periodically, we kept bringing back more and more birds. It was fun to see that most of our birds we brought back were mainly warblers. Our largest amount of species captured for the day went to the obvious winner, the Common Yellowthroat.

We stayed busy all day until we closed our nets. After we finished up for the day, I was impressed with everyone and how well they did with the unexpected day we had. I had to give a good ole hoo-rah to them when we finally walked out of Little Bear. 

Our highlight of the day was capturing our first of the season Blackpoll Warbler (pictured below). This is a treat to have at the station each year, since this bird usually does a big migration from the northeast part of the US and travel the whole way day to South America. This is such a trip for a little bird but they do it every year! This little cutie was an adult and still had a lot of fat, so hopefully it makes it to its destination. I was excited to see if Natalie and Brittany could identify this bird and they did so well! This was the first time for them seeing this bird and also in fall plumage. I pointed out the key characteristic, like the orange/yellow feet, compared to another closely look alike species the Bay-breasted Warbler. 

Tomorrow is still going to be a little windy, but it is predicted that it might be a good day. Hopefully a new species to add and a fun day for sure!

-Kristin

Note:  All banding, marking, and sampling is being conducted under a federally authorized Bird Banding Permit issued by the U.S. Geological Survey’s BBL

Species	Captain Sams		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Acadian Flycatcher	1	-	-	-
White-eyed Vireo	2	2	8	-
Red-eyed Vireo	2	-	2	-
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher	2	-	-	-
Carolina Wren	-	-	-	2
Gray Catbird	2	-	2	-
Veery	-	-	2	-
Ovenbird	-	1	-	-
Northern Waterthrush	1	1	1	1
Common Yellowthroat	50	1	57	2
American Redstart	6	1	6	-
Cape May Warbler	-	-	1	-
Yellow Warbler	3	-	3	-
Blackpoll Warbler	-	-	1	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	3	-	-	1
Palm Warbler (western subspecies)	1	-	21	-
Prairie Warbler	1	-	1	-
Northern Cardinal	-	-	-	1
Painted Bunting	-	1	1	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	74	106	180
# of Recaptures	7	7	14
# of Species	14	16	19
Effort (net-hours)	153.60	139.95	293.55
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	52.7	80.7	66.1
# of Nets	32	23	55

2023 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	1071	686	1757
# of Recaptures	307	154	561
# of Species	43	48	56
Effort (net-hours)	5660.95	3146.60	10,483.5
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	24.3	26.7	22.1
# of Days	37	28	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kristin Attinger (LB)

Brittany Holliker (LB)

Matt Hixson (CS)

Camille Blose (CS)

Wentao Yang (CS)

Natalie Miller (LB)