Captain Sams 5,000th bird of the season is...

 CAPTAIN SAMS

We had an action-packed start to our morning with 78 of our birds caught during the first net run! A majority of which were Myrtle Warblers, which comes as no surprise to us at this point in the season. In other news, we banded Captain Sams 5,000th bird of the season today: a Golden-crowned Kinglet!

Golden-crowned Kinglet (Hatch Year, Male)

These incredibly tiny birds are often found in wooded habitat, with a preference for tall coniferous trees. Their eponymous golden crown varies from male to female, and this difference can be seen especially when the crest is raised. As pictured above, the females (left) possess a thin golden stripe, while the males (right) have a wider fiery orange-and-yellow.

-Lisa Viviano

LITTLE BEAR

Today was very similar to yesterday in the number of birds we caught (40 new and 4 recaptures), but we had a bunch of cool species which made the day great! Our first cool catch of the day was yet another Rose-breasted Grosbeak. It is surprising to see a second one at all considering they are uncommon catches, but it is particularly unusual to catch one so late in the season. These birds winter in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America, so this bird has a ways to go before it reaches it's wintering grounds. This individual was a hatch-year female, whereas our last one was a hatch-year male. In hatch-year birds males and females look similar but have a few key differences. Freshly molted feathers on young males will be coming in black, and the feathers on the underside of the wing will be red. Young females will be molting in brown feathers and their underwing will instead be yellow. We hope that the little lady we caught today makes it safely to her wintering grounds.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak (hatch-year, female)

Hatch year female underwing feathers (left) compared to hatch-year male underwing feathers (right)

Our next interesting bird was Little Bear's 3rd Brown Creeper of the season! Little Bear didn't catch any creepers in the last three years, so it is very cool to see so many this season! In addition to our creeper we also caught three White-throated Sparrows. While they are a more common catch than creepers they are not a bird we get in abundance, so it is always cool to see one!

Arguably the best bird of the day came half-way through the morning. Kristin was surprised to find nothing other than a Sharp-shinned Hawk in one of our nets. Even more exciting was the fact that this bird was a recapture! Neither station has banded a Sharp-shinned Hawk this year which meant one of two things, either this bird was a foreign recapture (banded by someone else), or it was a bird banded at Kiawah sometime in the past years. After recording the band number we discovered that this guy was banded last year at Captain Sams! Sharp-shinned Hawks banded in previous years are rarely recaught in subsequent years, so it was very cool to see this bird returning to the island. This bird was banded as an after hatch-year male last year, meaning he's a older guy! Check out this blog post to see more about when it was originally banded (on Thanksgiving!)

Sharp-shinned Hawk (after-hatch year, male, originally banded 11/23/2023)

- Natalie

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Sharp-shinned Hawk	-	-	-	1
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker	1	-	-	-
Eastern Phoebe	1	-	5	-
Carolina Chickadee	1	-	-	1
Golden-crowned Kinglet	6	-	3	-
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	10	-	2	-
Brown Creeper	-	-	1	-
Gray Catbird	2	5	1	2
Hermit Thrush	4	-	1	-
White-throated Sparrow	3	-	3	-
Song Sparrow	3	-	2	-
Swamp Sparrow	1	2	1	-
Ovenbird	-	1	-	-
Orange-crowned Warbler	1	-	-	-
Palm Warbler (western)	3	-	-	-
Yellow-rumped warbler (Myrtle)	61	2	19	-
Northern Cardinal	-	2	-	-
Rose-breasted Grosbeak	-	-	1	-
Painted Bunting	2	-	1	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	99	40	139
# of Recaptures	12	4	16
# of Species	16	14	19
Effort (net-hours)	163.4	140.4	303.8
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	67.9	31.3	44.3
# of Nets	32	26	58

2024 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	5,089	3,260	8,349
# of Recaptures	1,125	909	2,034
# of Species	87	87	102
Effort (net-hours)	13,789.35	8,904.6	22,693.95
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	45.1	46.8	45.75
# of Days	84	74

Banding Staff

Michael Gamble (CS)

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.