CAPTAIN SAMS
After the last couple of days, I did not have high hopes that today would be any better. It wasn't. We banded 10 new birds and had 15 recaptures of 8 species.
Last night, I realized that we were really close to banding 8,000 birds between Captain Sams and Little Bear this fall. To get to 8,000, all I needed to do was band 9 birds today. Easy, right? Nope. In the first 5 hours, we managed to band 5 new birds. At the 12:00pm net run, we somehow were able to pick up three more new birds: a Yellow-rumped Warbler, a Palm Warbler, and a White-throated Sparrow. The next net run (12:45pm) would have normally been the time when we would close down the nets for the day however with one more bird needed, I decided to wait and close down at 1:30pm just in case we couldn't pull it off. Thankfully, the 12:45pm run produced a pair of Yellow-rumps in net 31 putting us at 8,001 birds for the fall season! Just in case you wondering, we got skunked on the 1:30pm net run.
The Last Bird of the 2023 Fall Season
 |
| Yellow-rumped Warbler (after hatch-year, male) |
I'd like to thank my cousin, Sean, for helping me out during the last 10 days. He flew down from Illinois specifically to help me and learn more about birds and bird banding. He did great and learned how to extract birds from the mist nets and how to band and process the birds. In fact, he banded and processed all 25 birds that we captured today.
Over the next few days I will be putting together a season summary and will post here. In addition, there will be periodic posts throughout the winter featuring my winter banding projects.
-Aaron
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 | |
Ruby-crowned Kinglet | - | 1 | - | - |
House Wren | - | 1 | - | - |
Gray Catbird | - | 2 | - | - |
Northern Mockingbird | - | 1 | - | - |
Hermit Thrush | - | 4 | - | - |
White-throated Sparrow | 1 | 1 | - | - |
Palm Warbler (Western) | 1 | - | - | - |
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) | 8 | 4 | - | - |
Northern Cardinal | - | 1 | - | - |
| Today's Banding Stats | Captain Sams | Little Bear | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| # Birds Banded | 10 | - | - |
| # of Recaptures | 15 | - | - |
| # of Species | 8 | - | - |
| Effort (net-hours) | 236.8 | - | - |
| Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) | 6.3 | - | - |
| # of Nets | 32 | - | - |
| 2023 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats | Captain Sams | Little Bear | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| # Birds Banded | 4,621 | 3,380 | 8,001 |
| # of Recaptures | 1,294 | 729 | 2,024 |
| # of Species | 85 | 86 | 100 |
| Effort (net-hours) | 17,247.0 | 9,293.95 | 26540.95 |
| Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) | 34.3 | 44.2 | 37.8 |
| # of Days | 104 | 78 | - |
Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)Sean Dowd (CS)
