Cloudy with a Low Chance of Birds

 CAPTAIN SAMS

We captured 14 new birds and 9 recaptures of 13 different species. The remnants of Hurricane Francine that struck Louisiana on Wednesday is pushing through the area, preventing most birds from migrating. This has led to many slow days and allowed us to repair nets while we wait for the next push of migrants. After this system moves out of the area, we should see a high volume of songbirds that were held up during these storms. An interesting recapture today was this brown thrasher that was banded as an after hatch year on 8/15/2021, making it at least four years old. 

Brown Thrasher (after hatch year, male)

 -Michael

LITTLE BEAR

If you've been keeping up with our blog entries, you'll know that yesterday Little Bear caught 24 birds. Well today was no different! We caught 24 birds (16 new and 8 recaptures). It's almost like deja vu! However, our day did differ in the species we caught. Today we captured our 3rd green heron of the season! We were able to discern that this individual was an adult from several different features. Take a look at the pictures below to learn more!

               

The pictures above are comparing the facial features of a hatch year and adult bird. On the left is an adult, identified by it's solid red neck, it's slightly darker, more orange-y eye, it's dark green cap, and the lack of yellow in the upper mandible of the bill. On the right is a hatch year bird, and as you can see it is much streakier with a lighter eye, yellow bill, and dirty cap. 

In these photos we can compare molt limits between the two ages. On the right is a hatch year bird, easily identified by the thick white wedges on the tips of many of it's feathers. These thick wedges are only found in young birds and as they grow older, these wedges will turn into thin white linings on the edges of the feathers. This can be seen in the adult bird (left photo). The presence or absence of these white wedges are very useful in determining the age of these birds. One easy way to remember this is "wedges to edges", with hatch years having wedges and adults having edges. 

Despite the relatively slow day, we still caught this cool bird and were able to learn more about it's molt strategies. Hopefully we will get some more favorable winds in the near future, but until then we will enjoy the birds we do catch!

-Natalie

Species	Captain Sams		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Green Heron	-	-	1	-
Traill's Flycatcher	1	-	-	-
White-eyed Vireo	-	1	1	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	1	-	-
Carolina Wren	-	-	1	-
Brown Thrasher	-	1	-	-
Ovenbird	-	2	-	-
Northern Waterthrush	2	-	1	-
Black-and-white Warbler	1	-	-	-
Prothonotary Warbler	-	-	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	5	-	3	2
American Redstart	2	-	-	-
Yellow Warbler	1	-	2	-
Prairie Warbler	1	1	1	-
Northern Cardinal	-	1	2	-
Painted Bunting	1	2	5	4

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	14	16	30
# of Recaptures	9	8	17
# of Species	13	10	16
Effort (net-hours)	181.3	110.7	292.0
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	12.7	21.7	16.1
# of Nets	32	26	58

2024 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	827	657	1,484
# of Recaptures	253	186	439
# of Species	37	43	52
Effort (net-hours)	4,411.0	2,299.4	6,710.4
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	24.5	36.7	28.7
# of Days	28	21	-

Banding Staff

Aaron Given

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.