You Had Me at The Word Yellow

 CAPTAIN SAMS

Today was yet another good day out at Captain Sams! We caught 63 birds today (60 new and 3 recaptures). The continued winds from the northeast have kept the migrants coming. And what would fall banding on Kiawah Island be without common yellowthroats? These little birds (unsurprisingly) continue to be our most abundant species. Today we caught 34 new! Despite the fact that we banded 41 yellowthroats yesterday we only recaptured 2 today. Many have probably already moved on with their migration and have bid Kiawah farewell. But never to fear, because even though most of those yellowthroats have left, there are many more waiting in the wings!

We also caught a brand new bird for the season, a yellow-bellied flycatcher! We don't catch many of these birds out here so it was exciting to see! This bird closely resembles the more common Acadian flycatcher but after taking extensive measurements, we determined that this individual was indeed a yellow-bellied flycatcher! 

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher (second year, sex unknown)

The forecast is favorable for the next few days, and we are excited to see how many birds we catch with the coming cold front this weekend!

- Natalie

LITTLE BEAR

Today was a lot better than yesterday. We ended our day with a total of 54 birds with 45 newly banded birds and 9 recaptures. We finally added 2 new species for Little Bear for this season; a yellow-billed cuckoo and a prothonotary warbler. I have been waiting for a prothonotary warbler since Little Bear has been open but they have been either sneaky around our nets or just been avoiding the station until now. We finally got a bundle of common yellowthroats showing up in our nets, preparing us for the next big busy day we might be getting later this week! I am pretty excited to see what we will be catching next. I have been seeing our night heron friend hanging around our nets again, so maybe we catch a new one here soon or the one that was recently banded.

Worm-eating Warbler (after hatch year, sex unknown)

-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
Yellow-Billed Cuckoo	-	-	1	-
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher	1	-	-	-
Traill's Flycatcher	2	-	-	-
Red-eyed Vireo	-	-	1	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	1	-	2
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher	1	-	-	-
Ovenbird	1	-	1	-
Worm-eating Warbler	-	-	1	-
Northern Waterthrush	7	-	9	-
Black-and-white Warbler	1	-	-	-
Prothonotary Warbler	-	-	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	34	2	21	-
American Redstart	8	-	3	-
Yellow Warbler	1	-	2	-
Prairie Warbler	2	-	3	-
Painted Bunting	2	-	2	7

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	60	45	105
# of Recaptures	3	9	12
# of Species	12	12	16
Effort (net-hours)	166.4	129.2	295.6
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	37.8	40.2	34.8
# of Nets	32	26	58

2024 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	458	324	782
# of Recaptures	154	115	269
# of Species	30	32	41
Effort (net-hours)	3,221.5	1,466.45	4,687.95
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	19.0	29.8	22.4
# of Days	20	14	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Michael Gamble

Kristin Attinger (LB)

Natalie Miller (CS)

Lisa Viviano (LB)

Noah Nei (CS)