Golden Crowns and White Throats

 Captain Sams:

The long-awaited cold front finally arrived, bringing chilly temperatures and high winds. Despite such adverse conditions, we had a relatively good number of birds today with 73 newly banded and 6 recaptures. Typical winter residents, like Ruby-crowned Kinglet and Yellow-rumped Warbler, made up a good chunk of our species today. Excitingly, the station caught its' first Golden-crowned Kinglet of the year. The individual was a hatch-year female, with sex determined by a lack of orange around the yellow crown and age by its' relatively tapered tail. 

Hatch-year female Golden-crowned Kinglet

Even though high winds mean more tangled birds and fewer captures, they do highly benefit the chances of tree swallows descending on the Wax Myrtle near the station. A net is strategically placed in front of each of the two bushes to allow for attempts at capturing them. Stronger winds mean an inability for the swallows to feed on insect swarms in the air, causing them to move towards stationary plant-based food sources instead. Between net runs, as we waited at the table, calls of a handful of Tree Swallows were heard overhead moving towards the marshes. Upon further investigation, we were caught off-guard by a swarm of easily one thousand Tree Swallows feeding on Spartina above the water!

In haste, our group split up to go open the two swallow nets in hopes of catching them. As Aaron and I moved through high water towards the far net, the entire flock of Tree Swallows descended on the Wax Myrtle bush right next to the net. What was once a bush became a living mass of ravenous birds, leaving no inch uncovered as they began to gorge on the abundant berries. We quickened our pace, hoping that some stragglers would remain or that the flock would circle back immediately after we opened the net. To our chagrin, after we flushed the flock from the bush never were they again seen feeding on it. In dismay, we closed the nets, but will attempt to get ahead of the birds tomorrow and open them immediately!

Weather conditions look colder tomorrow than today, with similarly high winds. Hopefully, this means a successful capture of some Tree Swallows... preferably not in numbers anywhere close to the one thousand we saw today!

-Matt

Little Bear:

Our day at Little Bear was cut shorter than usual today due to windy conditions. We ended the day with a total of 43 birds, of which only 4 were recaptures. Our most common bird of the day was the Yellow-rumped Warbler, followed closely by the Ruby-crowned Kinglet. We had both Indigo and Painted Buntings, Swamp and Song Sparrows, two Eastern Phoebes, and a new species for this station this field season.....two White-throated Sparrows! A handful of warblers made an appearance, as well as a few Gray Catbirds and a Downy Woodpecker. As always, we are excited to see what tomorrow brings!

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
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker	1	-	-	-
Downy Woodpecker	-	-	-	1
Eastern Phoebe	7	-	3	-
White-eyed Vireo	2	-	-	-
Golden-crowned Kinglet	1	-	1	-
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	10	-	7	-
House Wren	1	-	-	-
Carolina Wren	-	1	-	-
Gray Catbird	7	1	3	3
Hermit Thrush	2	-	-	-
White-throated Sparrow	-	-	2	-
Song Sparrow	-	-	1	-
Swamp Sparrow	5	-	2	-
Orange-crowned Warbler	3	-	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	5	-	-	-
Cape May Warbler	1	-	1	-
Northern Parula	2	-	1	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	-	-	1	-
Palm Warbler (western subspecies)	5	-	4	-
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)	17	2	8	-
Northern Cardinal	-	1	-	-
Indigo Bunting	-	-	2	-
Painted Bunting	4	-	2	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	73	39	-
# of Recaptures	6	4	-
# of Species	18	16	-
Effort (net-hours)	184.0	80.2	-
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	42.9	53.6	-
# of Nets	32	25	57

2023 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	3879	2989	6868
# of Recaptures	916	592	1508
# of Species	78	82	92
Effort (net-hours)	12471.6	7602.3	20073.90
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	38.4	47.1	41.7
# of Days	75	64	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Kristin Attinger (LB)

Brittany Holliker (LB)

Matt Hixson (CS)

Camille Blose (CS)

Wentao Yang (CS)

Natalie Miller (LB)