Feeling a little salty in the marsh

 Captain Sams:

Greetings from the crew of Captain Sams! After a few days with high numbers of birds, it turned out to be a relatively relaxing day with 109 birds of 10 species, which is consistent with what the radar shows today. However, the numbers of Gray Catbirds would not give us a break any time soon. Out of the 107 birds we captured today, we had 76 Gray Catbirds including 14 recap in total. 

The tide today still brought some water almost to the banding table, but it also brought some White Ibis together with the water. There were three of them foraging not too far from the station. Aaron said he would bring out a big net next time for these guys and hopefully, we will have a successful attempt in the next few days!

-Wentao

Little Bear:

Today was a definitely a slower day than what we have been having the past few days. We ended with a total of 65 birds and only 9 of them being recaptures. We luckily added 2 new first of the season to the station! We have been having a decent high tides this past week and I kept thinking that we would be catching a few marsh birds, like marsh wren or even a seaside or saltmarsh sparrow. To my surprise we finally captured our Saltmarsh Sparrow this morning during our first run! I was pretty excited because we talked about what new species we would want and talked about wanting some sparrows to show up. I was excited to show this cutie to everyone. I have a nice space in my heart for these birds since I used to work with them up in New Jersey during their breeding season for 2 years. I love the characteristics each individual show. 

Saltmarsh Sparrow

Another great catch of the day was this young male Cooper's Hawk. This was an exciting bird because we almost had one about a week ago in the net but escaped. Today as I was walking up to one of the nets, I scared him out of the tree and he flew right into the net! I ran quickly in the water to him and scooped him up before he could make his escape! I was super excited to see Matt and Natalie's reaction, since this would be the first raptor in the hand for them! This young male was a little sassy but was a nice little lad when going through the whole banding process. 

Hatch year male Cooper's Hawk

I am excited to see the next big push of birds come through and see what it has in store for us!

-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
Cooper's Hawk	-	-	1	-
White-eyed Vireo	1	2	2	1
House Wren	-	-	2	-
Wood Thrush	1	-	-	-
Gray Catbird	62	14	31	4
Saltmarsh Sparrow	-	-	1	-
Northern Waterthrush	1	-	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	14	4	12	3
American Redstart	1	2	3	-
Northern Parula	1	-	-	-
Yellow Warbler	-	-	1	-
Northern Cardinal	-	2	-	1
Indigo Bunting	1	-	-	-
Painted Bunting	1	-	3	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	83	56	139
# of Recaptures	24	9	33
# of Species	10	10	14
Effort (net-hours)	156.8	120	276.8
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	68.2	54.2	62.1
# of Nets	32	25	57

2023 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	2058	1322	3,380
# of Recaptures	475	225	700
# of Species	52	55	66
Effort (net-hours)	7770.55	4,429.5	11835.25
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	32.6	34.9	34.5
# of Days	48	38	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kristin Attinger (LB)

Brittany Holliker (CS)

Matt Hixson (LB)

Camille Blose (CS)

Wentao Yang (CS)

Natalie Miller (LB)