What a Dee-lightful Day at Little Bear

CAPTAIN SAMS

Offshore rain showers threatened our banding efforts most of the morning. Fortunately, as the rain came to shore it dissipated quickly  and we only experienced short periods of misty rain. It was very slow out on the Spit this morning and we only banded 8 new birds and had 5 recaptures. Tomorrow should be a carbon copy of today as weather conditions will be similar. On Tuesday, the wind shifts back to the south which will bring warmer temperatures and higher humidity. It looks like we will be stuck in that rut for at least through Labor Day.  

-Aaron

LITTLE BEAR

Today was another great day at Little Bear. A wonderful cloud cover made our day a lot cooler than what it has been since we started. We ended today with a total of 40 birds - 22 of them were newly banded. We added yet another new species to the list for this season, a tufted titmouse! I always enjoy having a few in the hand to look at. They make such a unique call that is quite pleasant to the ears, at least to me. This little bird was a hatch year but didn't bring along any of its siblings or family members. 

We also had a fun bird hanging around our nets earlier in the morning, a young black-crowned night heron was lurking around our nets catching some frogs that have been residing at Little Bear. Our green heron is still hanging around as well. I am pretty excited to see what tomorrow will bring! This season has been going great so far with the painted buntings and they are still our top species each day. 

Shown below are a few carolina chickadees and a tufted titmouse with molt limits. Read each image to learn more about them!

This is a AHY or also known as an after hatching year bird. The red arrow is pointing to a very worn feather that indicates that this feather is older and has been through at least the breeding season. 

This is a great example of a young hatching year bird. The red arrows are pointing to feathers that were grown while in the nest with newer feathers growing in. See how pointy and translucent the tail is. On top of the tail looking like this we also look at the wing and see other molts that occur as shown in the image below. 

Going through the order of molting their wings this chickadee has completed the greater coverts and is currently working on the alulas. You can compare this image to the top image with the AHY bird. 

This is our hatching year tufted titmouse. The red arrows are pointing to newly replaced feathers in the tertials. Looking at this image you can also see how brown the primary coverts are as well.

-Kristin

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
Downy Woodpecker	-	-	1	-
Red-eyed Vireo	-	-	1	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	1	5	3
Tufted Titmouse	-	-	1	-
Carolina Wren	-	-	-	1
House Finch	-	1	-	-
Black-and-white Warbler	-	1	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	2	-	-	-
American Redstart	1	-	-	-
Prairie Warbler	3	-	5	-
Northern Cardinal	-	1	1	1
Painted Bunting	2	1	7	13

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	8	22	30
# of Recaptures	5	18	23
# of Species	8	9	12
Effort (net-hours)	130.2	167.3	297.5
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	10.0	23.9	17.8
# of Nets	32	26	58

2024 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	208	114	322
# of Recaptures	95	34	129
# of Species	25	18	29
Effort (net-hours)	1,392.8	407.4	1,800.2
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	21.75	36.3	25.05
# of Days	8	3	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Noah Nei (CS)

Adam Wolf (CS)

Kristin Attinger (LB)

Natalie Miller (LB)