Winter is calling

 Captain Sams:

Today's banding marked our last week here at the station, and I finally made my 1000 banded birds milestone here at Kiawah! Woo hoo! Today is also the first day of Winter in Lunar Calendar which was used by ancient Chinese long long ago, which also means our fall migration was coming to an end. As a result, we were seeing more wintering birds around the area such as the American Pipits that were flying over and giving flight calls this morning. 

Our biggest excitement from today was a larger sized raptor that swooped to net 25 when we walked by. As Aaron started to sprint and get hold of the bird, it turned around and took off in less than a second. What a shame! Earlier this morning, Aaron was just talking about his google memory told him that last year today, they caught a Red-shouldered Hawk at the station. How crazy would that be if it just happened to be another captured Red-shouldered Hawk.

-Wentao

Little Bear:

Today was a lot slower than I expected. I was hoping for some more birds and was trying to keep a steady rate of birds being captured today. We heard a large amount of chipping this morning as we were opening this morning but by our 2nd run it was very quite. It made it an interesting day for sure! It was nice to enjoy the cooler morning but the heat ended up beating us out of the station and the bugs definitely started to be more active lately. 

Even though it will be slow tomorrow as well, I am hoping for a nice little flock of Myrtles that might show up in the net. having any birds for the day is always a treat for me though.

-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
Eastern Phoebe	1	-	1	-
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	7	-	1	-
Gray Catbird	2	4	2	3
Hermit Thrush	-	1	-	-
White-crowned Sparrow	-	1	-	-
Song Sparrow	3	2	2	-
Swamp Sparrow	2	-	1	-
Eastern Towhee	-	-	-	1
Orange-crowned Warbler	2	-	2	-
Common Yellowthroat	1	-	-	-
Yellow-rumped Warbler (myrtle subspecies)	14	5	16	-
Northern Cardinal	1	1	-	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	33	25	58
# of Recaptures	14	4	18
# of Species	11	8	12
Effort (net-hours)	164.75	127.5	292.25
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	28.5	22.7	26.0
# of Nets	32	25	57

2023 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	4205	3,217	7,422
# of Recaptures	1021	692	1,713
# of Species	81	85	95
Effort (net-hours)	13683.35	8,468.55	22,151.9
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	38.2	46.2	41.2
# of Days	83	71	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kristin Attinger (LB)

Matt Hixson (LB)

Wentao Yang (CS)

Camille Blose (CS)