CAPTAIN SAMS
Today was another productive day at Captain Sams, we caught 90 new birds and 16 recaptures. We added two new species for the year, which included Brown Creeper and Golden-crowned Kinglet. We are starting to see a transitionary period in which many of our neotropical migrants are finally past South Carolina's coast and are now beginning to see more migrants that will winter in the southern United States. With less and less neotropical migrants passing through, we are catching more Swamp Sparrows, House Wrens, Kinglets, and Yellow-rumped Warblers.
We likely have a few really productive weeks left before things begin to taper off. We're excited to see what else shows up in our nets.
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| Brown Creeper (after hatch year, unknown sex) |
- Noah Nei
Today was a great day! We added 4 new species to Little Bear; Yellow-rumped Warbler, Eastern Phoebe, Blackpoll Warbler and Swamp Sparrow. I was having fun predicting our new species and unfortunately it came to guessing the most obvious species. Mine was the Swamp Sparrow and someone else guessed Eastern Phoebe.
We ended the day with a total of 115 birds with 98 of them newly banded. We were shy of 2 new birds to top it off at 100. I am impressed with out this season has been going. We reached over 2,000 birds so far but my hopes is that we have a few big days that could boost up my totals and maybe I can officially beat the record. Last year I came very close to that goal but bad weather near the end of the season stopped me from succeeding.
Our Blackpoll Warbler was definitely our highlight species of the day. We sometimes, over the years catch a decent amount of them that get pushed back to the coast by storms. This bird, pictured below, was a nice heavy bird weighing in at 15.3 grams! That was such great news to see/hear! Typically birds that get pushed in from storms are a lot smaller with less fat. So a nice chunky bird in the hand is what banders like to see for fall migration
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| Blackpoll Warbler (hatch year, unknown sex) |
-Kristin
| Species | Captain Sam's | Little Bear | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New | Recaps | New | Recaps | |
Yellow-billed Cuckoo | 2 | - | - | - |
Downy Woodpecker | - | 1 | - | - |
Eastern Wood-Pewee | 1 | - | - | - |
Eastern Phoebe | 3 | - | 4 | - |
Golden-crowned Kinglet | 1 | - | - | - |
Ruby-crowned Kinglet | 3 | - | - | - |
Brown Creeper | 1 | - | - | - |
Red-eyed Vireo | - | - | 1 | - |
Carolina Chickadee | - | 2 | - | - |
House Wren | 6 | - | 6 | - |
Gray Catbird | 27 | 9 | 23 | 10 |
Brown Thrasher | - | - | 2 | - |
Swainson's Thrush | 2 | - | - | - |
Swamp Sparrow | 3 | - | - | - |
Ovenbird | - | - | 1 | - |
Black-and-white Warbler | 1 | - | 1 | - |
Common Yellowthroat | 20 | 2 | 17 | 1 |
American Redstart | 6 | 1 | 1 | - |
Blackpoll Warbler | - | - | 1 | - |
| Black-throated Blue Warbler | 5 | - | 2 | - |
| Palm Warbler (western) | 5 | - | 31 | - |
| Palm Warbler (yellow) | - | - | 1 | - |
| Yellow-rumped Warbler (myrtle) | - | - | 1 | - |
| Prairie Warbler | - | - | 2 | - |
| Indigo Bunting | 1 | - | - | - |
| Painted Bunting | 2 | 1 | 1 | 6 |
| Today's Banding Stats | Captain Sams | Little Bear | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| # Birds Banded | 90 | 98 | 188 |
| # of Recaptures | 16 | 17 | 33 |
| # of Species | 19 | 16 | 22 |
| Effort (net-hours) | 166.4 | 122.2 | 288.6 |
| Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) | 63.7 | 94.1 | 76.6 |
| # of Nets | 32 | 26 | 58 |
| 2024 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats | Captain Sams | Little Bear | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| # Birds Banded | 3,443 | 2,164 | 5,606 |
| # of Recaptures | 646 | 524 | 1,169 |
| # of Species | 73 | 65 | 87 |
| Effort (net-hours) | 9,129.4 | 5,496.8 | 14,626.3 |
| Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) | 44.8 | 48.9 | 46.3 |
| # of Days | 56 | 47 |
Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)