Let's Take a Trip to Connecticut

 Captain Sams:

After a pathetic misty day yesterday, the sun decided to give us some warmth today. We started the day with some cloud cover and few birds, but as soon as the sun came out, we could hear flocks of Myrtle Warblers chipping everywhere at the station. We ended our work with 36 new individuals of them today, and a few return visitors. Based on the last several days of Myrtle Warblers banding, we found that most of them kept on their journey rather than hanging out at the area, as we seldom recaptured them. In contrast, the frequency of recapturing Myrtle Warblers that were from the past is much higher, which is quite an interested trend to see.

As it is reaching to the end of the season, I went out to the river today and looked for some wildlife there. There was a baby Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin accompanied by its parent, swimming across the river. Two American Oystercatchers decided to land on the oyster pile in the river and get their lunch. One of them is color banded too, with "U5" on a red band. Aaron told us that it has been here for a long long time, and it was banded in Georgia. A tons of Laughing Gulls and Ring-billed Gulls roosted on the beach, watching us driving away after work. It has been a great season watching all these wildlife, adding some birds to my lifer list,  and learning a lot from them. Thank you so much for reading, and it is about time for us to keep on our journey soon. 

-Wentao

Little Bear:

Today was a surprisingly great day! We started off with chilly temperatures and gusty winds, and it seemed as though we'd have a slow turnout of birds. However, we ended the day with 47 total birds, only 4 of which were recaptures! 34 of these birds were Yellow-rumped warblers as our nets were hit by several "butterbutt" flocks. However, amongst the Yellow-rumps were two birds we have not seen in awhile, a Chestnut-sided Warbler and a Yellow-breasted Chat! It has been some time since I've seen these guys so it was exciting to catch them today after several weeks of Yellow-rumps and Catbirds. 

This morning as we drove out to Little Bear Kristin was hoping that we would catch a few more species for Little Bear before the season was over. Silly little me said that it would be hard considering that Little Bear will only be open for 2 more days. However, the universe was out to prove me wrong (as usual) because on our first net run Brittany brought back a Connecticut Warbler! I have never seen one of these little cuties before so it was very exciting to see one in the hand! It is awfully late in the season for these birds to be around. Last year a Connecticut Warbler was caught on October 20th, so this little guy is definitely behind on his migration! Luckily, he had a lot of fat stored up, so he will likely continue on his way tonight!

Hatch-year Connecticut Warbler

- Natalie

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
Blue-headed Vireo	1	-	-	-
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	9	1	4	-
Carolina Wren	-	-	-	1
Gray Catbird	-	1	-	2
Northern Mockingbird	1	-	-	-
Hermit Thrush	1	-	-	-
Song Sparrow	-	1	-	-
Swamp Sparrow	-	1	-	-
Yellow-breasted Chat	-	-	1	-
Connecticut Warbler	-	-	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	-	-	2	-
Chestnut-sided Warbler	-	-	1	-
Palm Warbler (western subspecies)	-	-	1	-
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)	36	4	34	-
Northern Cardinal	-	1	-	1
Painted Bunting	1	1	-	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	49	43	92
# of Recaptures	10	4	14
# of Species	10	9	15
Effort (net-hours)	184	155	339
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	32.1	30.3	31.3
# of Nets	32	25	57

2023 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	4,308	3,326	7,634
# of Recaptures	1,074	721	1,795
# of Species	81	86	96
Effort (net-hours)	14,412.45	9079.80	23,492.25
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	37.3	44.6	40.14
# of Days	88	76	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kristin Attinger (LB)

Brittany Holliker (LB)

Matt Hixson (CS)

Wentao Yang (CS)

Natalie Miller (LB)

Camille Blose (CS)