The Meows of Gray Catbirds Echoing Through My Mind

 Captain Sams:

My stars, was today a busy day! High tides made for very wet feet, or should I say thighs, or perhaps both? We had a grand total of 211 birds, with 17 being recaptures! A variety of species visited the banding station, including 97 Gray Catbirds, the Swainson's Warbler from yesterday, a Yellow-breasted Chat, and 2 Indigo Buntings. 

We were thrilled to find that not one, but two, Acadian Flycatchers graced our nets this morning. These adept fliers are known for their beautiful forest green color and their amazing ability to catch insects on the wing. We hope these little cuties have safe travels on their way down to Northern South America soon.

hatch-year Acadian Flycatcher, sex unknown

Another cool catch of the day was the station's second Scarlet Tanager. This hatch-year male sported the charismatic black wings that the species is known even though he lacked the bright red breeding plumage that is his namesake. The oldest known Scarlet Tanager was 11 year and 11 months old. We hope our new friend has a similar lifespan filled with happiness and cheer.

hatch-year male, Scarlet Tanager

Special thanks to David McLean for joining us today. How many birds will tomorrow bring? Perhaps more? Stay tuned to find out!

-Brittany and Natalie

Little Bear:

It's the last day of September and we can't believe that it's already half way through the season! After the hundred-birds day, we have a slightly slower but still exciting day at the Little Bear. In general, we ended up with 78 new captures and 7 recaps today with 18 species in total. 

We had a few really great net runs at the start of the day with some decent amount of Gray Catbirds. Almost all of the catbirds we got today are hatch year birds with black pupil and brownish iris. Another fun fact about aging Gray Catbirds is that if you look inside their bill, hatch year birds will have white-ish at the upper part while adult birds will be completely dark, which provides extra confirmation for aging. Other than all the hatch year birds, we recaptured two catbirds that were banded last year in October, and one of them was banded at Captain Sams! How cool is that. Maybe he just decided to pay a visit to the other side of the island. 

Things died down quickly today, and we started to have less birds each net run. However, we did see a fly by Bay-breasted Warbler on our way out so maybe tomorrow could be the day!

-Wentao

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
Downy Woodpecker	-	1	-	-
Acadian Flycatcher	2	-	-	-
Traill's Flycatcher	-	-	1	-
White-eyed Vireo	6	2	3	-
Red-eyed Vireo	9	-	3	-
House Wren	-	-	1	-
Carolina Wren	-	-	-	1
Gray Catbird	94	3	39	3
Northern Mockingbird	-	1	1	-
Swainson's Thrush	3	-	-	-
Yellow-breasted Chat	1	-	-	-
Ovenbird	1	1	-	1
Northern Waterthrush	2	-	-	1
Black-and-White Warbler	1	-	1	-
Swainson's Warbler	-	1	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	36	5	10	1
American Redstart	24	2	4	-
Yellow Warbler	3	-	1	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	5	-	4	-
Palm Warbler (Western Subspecies)	4	-	6	-
Scarlet Tanager	1	-	-	-
Northern Cardinal	-	1	-	-
Indigo Bunting	2	-	1	-
Painted Bunting	-	-	2	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	194	78	272
# of Recaptures	17	7	24
# of Species	20	18	24
Effort (net-hours)	256	145	401
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	82.4	58.6	73.8
# of Nets	32	25	57

2023 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	1662	1113	2775
# of Recaptures	404	200	604
# of Species	50	52	62
Effort (net-hours)	7162.55	4043	11205.55
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	28.8	32.5	30.15
# of Days	45	35	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kristin Attinger (LB)

Brittany Holliker (CS)

Matt Hixson (LB)

Camille Blose 

Wentao Yang (LB)

Natalie Miller (CS)

David McLean (CS)