What in Migration!?

 CAPTAIN SAMS

Today was a fairly remarkable day compared to what we've experienced so far. To be truthful, this is only the beginning of what is to come and we expect to have far greater numbers pushing through soon. Today we banded 73 new birds and recaptured 6 for a grand total of 79. If the weather had cooperated better we surely would have seen over 100 birds total but were forced to close earlier than expected due to rain. We had wide diversity of birds and multiple season firsts which included gray catbird (which we will see in droves soon), eastern wood-pewee, chuck-will's-widow, and Cape May warbler. 

One of my personal favorites were the Cape May warblers. During the first net run I walked to a net and had five all very close to one another, likely moving together before they hit our net. This was a very exciting moment and we continued to catch more as the day progressed. Another spectacular catch for the morning was the chuck-will's-widow. These bizarre birds are nocturnal, hunting insects at night and are well adapted to maneuver throughout wooded areas when foraging. Although they appear quite awkward in the hand they are impressive predators and are more often heard than seen by birders. Considering how difficult they can be to get a good look at, it is quite the treat to be able to look one over in the hand! Occasionally, if you're ambitious and venture out after dark, they can be observed in the moonlight or under streetlamps foraging. 

Cape May Warbler (after hatch year, male)

Chuck-will's-widow (after hatch year, female)

- Noah Nei

LITTLE BEAR

Today was an amazing day out at Little Bear! We caught a total of 106 new birds and 13 recaptures! We got plenty of migrating birds, including the first of season Cape May warblers, some pretty black-throated blue warblers, some northern waterthrushes, and (unsurprisingly) common yellowthroats. Luckily the rain held of this morning, allowing us to open the station. The recent rains have slightly increased the amount of standing water at Little Bear, and in turn this has drawn in a great egret. We did not catch this guy today, but hopefully it continues to hang around!

The northwestern winds last night pushed in a lot of different birds. In fact, we had 5 new species for the station today, a yellow-bellied flycatcher, Acadian flycatcher, eastern wood-pewee, Cape May warbler, and palm warbler (western subspecies). Our most common species of the day was actually not the common yellowthroat (which has recently been the top dog out here) but instead was the Cape May warbler. It was nice to have this increased variety in species!

In addition to all of these new birds we also caught some other, previously caught species in increased numbers. In particular we saw an increase in black-throated blue warblers. Today we caught 7, 2 of which were part of the Appalachian subspecies. This subspecies can be identified by the large black markings on their backs. These individuals breed in the Appalachian mountains from West Virginia to Georgia (as their name suggests) but will winter with the monotypic birds in the Caribbean and Central America. For more information on these birds check out this blog post from 2018.

Yellow-bellied Flycatcher (hatch year, sex unknown)

Cape May Warbler (after hatch year, male)

- Natalie

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
Chuck-will's-widow	1	-	-	-
Eastern Wood-pewee	1	-	1	-
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher	-	-	1	-
Acadian Flycatcher	-	-	1	-
White-eyed Vireo	1	-	-	-
Red-eyed Vireo	2	-	1	1
Carolina Wren	-	-	-	1
Gray Catbird	1	-	-	-
Veery	-	-	1	-
House Finch	1	-	-	-
Yellow-breasted Chat	1	-	-	-
Ovenbird	2	-	-	-
Northern Waterthrush	11	-	25	1
Black-and-white Warbler	3	-	2	-
Prothonotary Warbler	1	-	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	13	3	20	-
American Redstart	8	-	11	-
Cape May Warbler	13	-	27	-
Yellow Warbler	1	-	2	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	6	-	7	-
Palm Warbler (Western)	-	-	1	-
Prairie Warbler	2	-	1	-
Northern Cardinal	-	1	1	2
Painted Bunting	5	2	4	8

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	73	106	179
# of Recaptures	6	13	19
# of Species	19	17	24
Effort (net-hours)	121.6	140.4	262
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	65.0	84.8	75.6
# of Nets	32	26	58

2024 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	576	460	1,036
# of Recaptures	182	145	327
# of Species	35	38	46
Effort (net-hours)	3,661.00	1,839.95	5,500.95
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	20.7	32.9	24.8
# of Days	24	17	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Michael Gamble (CS)

Kristin Attinger (LB)

Natalie Miller (LB)

Lisa Viviano (LB)

Noah Nei (CS)

Nancy Raginski (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.