103 Days Down, 5 To Go

 CAPTAIN SAMS

Today was the 100th day of banding at Captain Sams this fall.  Since we started on August 15th, we've only missed 3 days due to rain.  With only 5 days left in the 2024 fall migration banding season, we are coming down to the wire on a couple of potential records.  Currently, we have captured 105 species this fall between Captain Sams and Little Bear.  This ties the all time species record from 2021.  

Another record that is well within reach is the total number of birds banded at Captain Sams.  That record was set in 2021 as well with 5,704 bird banded.  To date, we've banded 5,628 birds this fall which means we need to band 77 birds in the next 5 day break that record.  All we need to do is average 15.2 birds/day to get there. We've averaged 32 birds/day over the last two weeks and 33 birds/day over the last week so I am confident we can get there.  There is rain in the forecast on Thursday and Friday which could play the spoiler.  

Bird activity slowed down a bit today and we only banded 25 new birds and 18 recaptures of 10 species.  The highlight of the day came when Michael brought back a small flock of American Goldfinches that flew into one of our "swallow nets".  The last goldfinch that we banded was in 2020 and that bird was captured in August which is an usual time of year to have one.  In total, we've only banded 32 in the fall since we started banding in 2009.  That number is a little misleading because in 2018 we caught a flock of 17 of them in "net 0" all at one time.

American Goldfinch (hatch-year, male)

          

American Goldfinch (hatch-year, female)

Male American Goldfinch have blacker wing coverts compared to the female.  Both of these birds had a molt limit between the outer greater covert and the carpal covert which allowed us to age them as hatch-years. The retained carpal covert was lighter in color and had a buffy tip.  Unfortunately I didn't take an open wing photo to show off this molt limit.     

-Aaron

Species	Captain Sams		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker	-	1	-	-
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	1	3	-	-
Gray Catbird	-	2	-	-
Hermit Thrush	-	3	-	-
American Goldfinch	4	-	-	-
White-throated Sparrow	1	1	-	-
Song Sparrow	1	-	-	-
Swamp Sparrow	-	2	-	-
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)	18	5	-	-
Northern Cardinal	-	1	-	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	25	-	-
# of Recaptures	18	-	-
# of Species	10	-	-
Effort (net-hours)	198.4	-	-
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	21.7	-	-
# of Nets	32	-	-

2024 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	5,628	3,345	8,973
# of Recaptures	1,438	941	2,379
# of Species	91	87	105
Effort (net-hours)	16,660.8	9,541.6	26,202.4
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	42.4	44.9	43.3
# of Days	100	80

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Michael Gamble (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.