Yearning for Indigo Skies

 CAPTAIN SAMS

Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate with us today at Captain Sams which prevented us from being open for the majority of the day. We ended up catching 17 new birds and only 1 recapture. We're hoping a cold front is on its way soon to not only push some of this moisture out of the area but to also push new migratory songbirds southbound. Almost all of our birds captured today were Common Yellowthroats and I imagine in the next several days we will continue to see their numbers increase. One of the more interesting catches today was a hatch year brown thrasher, which provided a nice comparison for the assistant banders who saw the mature adult a few days before. 

- Noah Nei

LITTLE BEAR

A light mist descended upon us at Little Bear this morning, leading to some wet vegetation and even wetter people. However, this did not stop us from catching 36 birds today (26 new and 10 recaptures). We had more new common yellowthroats than we've seen in the last few days (16 to be exact). These birds continue to be our most abundant species and will likely remain so until gray catbirds take over sometime in October. 

In addition to the yellowthroats we also caught a few other cool migrating warblers. We got our third palm warbler (western subspecies) and Little Bear's first hooded warbler of the season! This individual was a hatch-year female so she was lacking the striking black hood from which she gets her name, but regardless it is always nice to catch a hooded warbler. In addition to the warblers we also got the station's first indigo bunting of the season. This one was a hatch-year male, and it was sexed by the amount of blue coming in on the chest, back, and within some of the molting coverts. 

Despite it being slightly wet out there it was still a productive day! We are hopeful that the winds will become more favorable for us soon to push in more migrants!

Hooded Warbler (hatch-year, female)

Indigo Bunting (hatch-year, male)

- Natalie

Species	Captain Sams		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Traill's Flycatcher	-	-	1	-
White-eyed Vireo	1	-	-	-
Brown Thrasher	1	-	-	-
Northern Waterthrush	-	-	-	3
Common Yellowthroat	12	-	16	-
Hooded Warbler	-	-	1	-
American Redstart	1	1	-	-
Palm Warbler (western)	1	-	1	-
Prairie Warbler	1	-	1	-
Indigo Bunting	-	-	1	-
Painted Bunting	-	-	4	7

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	17	26	43
# of Recaptures	1	10	11
# of Species	6	8	11
Effort (net-hours)	89.6	109.8	199.4
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	20.1	32.8	27.1
# of Nets	32	26	58

2024 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	855	697	1552
# of Recaptures	264	218	482
# of Species	38	45	53
Effort (net-hours)	4658.2	2517.3	7175.5
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	24.0	36.3	28.3
# of Days	30	23

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Michael Gamble

Kristin Attinger (LB)

Natalie Miller (LB)

Lisa Viviano (CS)

Noah Nei (CS)

Note:  All banding, marking, and sampling is being conducted under a federally authorized Bird Banding Permit issued by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Bird Banding Lab.