Flicker Friday (on a Thursday)

 Captain Sams: 

My oh my, what a wonderful day! Warmer weather led to a much nicer day for the crew out at the station, however, Southerly winds last night meant that sadly we did not catch many birds (only 28 total). However, of these birds, one of them (the best one) was a Northern Flicker! How fun! This is the first time I've seen a Flicker in the hand, and oh boy they sure are large! I was not expecting this bird to be so big, and I was definitely surprised to find that my shockingly small hands barely fit around his body. 

Other than the Flicker we also caught the usual Yellow-rumped Warblers (Myrtle), some Ruby-crowned Kinglets, and a few more Painted Buntings (or, as I like to call them, Bunticles). To my despair we did not catch a single Gray Catbird today. I sincerely miss their adorable little meows and blank stares. Hopefully we will catch one of these adorable cuties tomorrow, stay tuned to find out!

Hatch-year Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted), staring introspectively off into the distance

-Natalie

Little Bear:

It was a nice cloudy morning that started out with only a few birds. However, the second run resulted in 12 Myrtle Warblers in one net! We had a total of 29 new and 8 recaptured birds, with 24 being Yellow-rumped (Myrtle) Warblers. There was a nice adult male Eastern Towhee and a recaptured Carolina Chickadee, which always finds its way into the net at the very end.

-Camille 

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
Northern Flicker	1	-	-	-
Eastern Phoebe	1	-	-	-
White-eyed Vireo	1	-	-	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	1	-	1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	2	2	1	-
House Wren	-	1	1	-
Carolina Wren	-	-	-	1
Gray Catbird	-	-	-	4
Hermit Thrush	1	1	-	-
Swamp Sparrow	1	-	1	1
Eastern Towhee	-	-	1	-
Orange-crowned Warbler	1	-	1	-
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)	9	3	24	-
Indigo Bunting	-	-	-	1
Painted Bunting	2	1	-	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	19	29	48
# of Recaptures	9	8	17
# of Species	11	10	15
Effort (net-hours)	150.4	135	285.9
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	18.6	27.4	22.7
# of Nets	32	25	57

2023 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	4,224	3,246	7,470
# of Recaptures	1,030	700	1,730
# of Species	81	85	95
Effort (net-hours)	13,833.75	8,603.55	22,247.3
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	38.0	45.9	41.0
# of Days	84	72	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kristin Attinger (LB)

Brittany Holliker (CS)

Matt Hixson

Wentao Yang

Natalie Miller (CS)

Camille Blose (LB)