CAPTAIN SAMS
I was not expecting to catch more birds than we did yesterday but that's exactly what happened, and we ended the day with 180 new birds and 9 recaptures of 23 species. We saw our first push of Gray Catbirds with 31 of them banded. Common Yellowthroats continue to dominate the nets with another 77 today, however, they should begin to taper off in the next week or so and then Gray Catbirds will reign supreme for most of October, followed by Yellow-rumped Warblers in November.
We had some early excitement when Michael got a young female Cooper's Hawk from the first net he checked on the first net run of the morning. She was pretty large, and large birds can easily escape from the nets so we have to be quick when we see something big.
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| Cooper's Hawk (Hatch-year, female) |
Later in the day some more excitement came when I pulled KIBS' 7th Connecticut Warbler from one out our "dune" nets. It's been a few years since we have banded one. We went 10 years before catching our first Connecticut Warbler in 2020 when we banded 3 of them (2 at Captain Sams and 1 at Little Bear). Little Bear caught two more in 2022 and another in 2023.
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| Connecticut Warbler (Hatch-year, male) |
-Aaron
LITTLE BEAR
Started the day with a strong initial push, but that quickly petered out after a couple of rounds. Still with 117 new bands put out and 16 recaptures of a total of 21 species it was a good day in the field.
Recently we have been catching some Indigo Buntings (also called indigo birds depending on local) and today we captured a hatch-year male that I thought it would be worthwhile to post on.
Hatch-year male Indigo Bunting
Indigo Buntings are know for the spectacular all-blue, metallic plumage sported by adult males in springtime and into summer. By this point in the year, however, even adult males scarcely show much color and the species generally, though varying somewhat by age and sex, show little, if any blue coloration and maintain an appearance closer to the dun-colored female birds.
Wings of an unknown sex hatch-year and an after-hatch year male respectively.
Indigo Buntings breed throughout much of eastern North America, hybridizing near the Rockies with their close relative the Lazuli Bunting in the narrow band where both species ranges overlap. On a personal tangent, Lazuli Buntings have a special significance to me as I once dragged my poor mother on a 4 hour car ride to the Cape Cod to see this species before I would eventually go to college in Idaho where the species is abundant.
According to Sprunt and Chamberlain in South Carolina Bird Life 2nd edition (1970), historically Indigo Buntings partitioned the state of South Carolina with Painted Buntings along the Fall Line. However, since the 1970s the the Indigos have expanded north into the Maritime provinces of Canada and have also expanded over the last century deep into the Florida Peninsula. Because of these range expansions this division may no longer hold true.
The name Indigo Bunting should especially appeal to natives of South Carolina as indigo was an important early cash crop from this state. This popular dye was produced in South Carolina to the extent that at that there was a period from the end of the 1740s to the 1790s that the state supplied a quarter of the Atlantic market of this crop. Troubles arose for this market after the American Revolution as this crop had been heavily subsidized by the crown and so was largely abandoned in the wake of independence.
This push of birds has been wonderful and we are hoping it to keep having large morning flights of birds in the coming days!
-Jeremiah
| Species | Captain Sam's | Little Bear | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New | Recaps | New | Recaps | |
Cooper's Hawk | 1 | - | - | - |
Downy Woodpecker | - | 1 | - | - |
White-eyed Vireo | - | 2 | 1 | - |
Red-eyed Vireo | 6 | - | 2 | - |
Carolina Chickadee | - | - | - | 1 |
House Wren | 1 | - | 3 | - |
Carolina Wren | - | - | - | 1 |
Gray Catbird | 31 | 2 | 19 | 2 |
Brown Thrasher | 2 | - | - | - |
Swainson's Thrush | - | - | 1 | - |
Wood Thrush | 1 | - | - | - |
Ovenbird | 1 | - | 1 | - |
Northern Waterthrush | 2 | - | 1 | - |
Black-and-White Warbler | 3 | - | 4 | 1 |
Nashville Warbler | 2 | - | - | - |
Connecticut Warbler | 1 | - | - | - |
Common Yellowthroat | 77 | 1 | 49 | 4 |
American Redstart | 29 | - | 6 | - |
Cape May Warbler | 4 | - | 2 | - |
| Northern Parula | - | - | 1 | - |
| Magnolia Warbler | 1 | - | 1 | - |
| Blackpoll Warbler | - | - | 1 | - |
| Black-throated Blue Warbler | 3 | - | 1 | - |
| Palm Warbler (Western) | 6 | - | 11 | 1 |
| Prairie Warbler | 2 | - | - | - |
| Northern Cardinal | - | - | 1 | - |
| Blue Grosbeak | 1 | - | - | - |
| Indigo Bunting | 4 | - | 3 | - |
| Painted Bunting | 2 | 3 | 9 | 6 |
| Today's Banding Stats | Captain Sams | Little Bear | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| # Birds Banded | 180 | 117 | 297 |
| # of Recaptures | 9 | 16 | 25 |
| # of Species | 23 | 21 | 29 |
| Effort (net-hours) | 192.0 | 161.3 | 353.3 |
| Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) | 98.4 | 82.5 | 91.1 |
| # of Nets | 32 | 28 | - |
| 2025 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats | Captain Sams | Little Bear | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| # Birds Banded | 2,553 | 1,768 | 4,321 |
| # of Recaptures | 309 | 303 | 612 |
| # of Species | 61 | 55 | 71 |
| Effort (net-hours) | 7,368.0 | 5,078.0 | 12,446.0 |
| Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) | 38.8 | 40.8 | 39.6 |
| # of Days | 47 | 40 |
Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)Michael Gamble (CS)
Liz Held (LB)
Arden Schneider (LB)
Camille Beckwith (LB)
Jeremiah Sullivan (LB)
Amy Nickerson (CS)
Keegan Foster (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.
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