Exciting day with high diversity

 CAPTAIN SAMS 

Crazy day at Captain Sam's with 218 new birds and 5 recaptures for a total of 223 birds. We had three new species for the season Black-throated Green Warbler, Yellow Palm Warbler, and Scarlet Tanager.

Hatch-year male Black-throated Green Warbler

Focusing in briefly on the Black-throated Green Warbler, this is a delightful little warbler of the high canopy of the North Woods and eastern woodlands. Between it and its close relatives the Golden-cheeked Warbler of the Texas Hill Country, the Black-throated Gray Warbler of the interior West, the Hermit Warbler of the Pacific coast, and the Townsend's Warbler of the continent's northwest these closely related species range through almost every woodland habitat in North America. There even exists an understudied subspecies of the Black-throated Green, the Wayne's Warbler, that breeds swamps along the coastal plain. of the U.S. southeast.

Where available, the females of this species have a fondness for incorporating fine strips of birch bark in their nests.

We may not get another Black-throated Green Warbler this season so this is a real treat. This little fellow could be en route to a destination as near as southern Florida or as distant as northern Columbia, so he may have a ways to go as of yet. Hopefully this storm does not take him too far off schedule.

Put extra ties on the nets as we left today. Depending how the weather unfolds it may be a little bit before we are back to the station. Hopefully, however, the storm brings some interesting birds to Kiawah.

-Jeremiah

LITTLE BEAR

We had a great day over at Little Bear! We banded 105 birds and had 6 recaptures, with these birds coming from 22 different species! This includes 12 species of warblers! Notably, we got a Worm-eating Warbler, a couple of Cape May Warblers, a Blackpoll Warbler, a couple of Magnolia Warblers, and a Canada Warbler, which are species that aren't regularly caught in large numbers here at KIBS. We also got a hatch year male Scarlet Tanager, which was lovely. We had a very exciting first of season today: an Eastern Whip-poor-will!! It was really cool to have one in the hand after banding a couple of Chuck-will's-widows (another type of nightjar) here this season, and the size difference was crazy! The Whip-poor-will seemed so small in comparison to the Chuck-will's-widows, but just as gorgeous. We were able to sex it as a female because of its buffy colored tips on the outer tail feathers, compared to large white patches on those feathers for males. It was a fun day!! 

- Camille 

Canada Warbler (hatch year, female)

Scarlet Tanager (hatch year, male)

Eastern Whip-poor-will (hatch year, female)

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Eastern Whip-poor-will	-	-	1	-
Trails Flycatcher	2	-	2	-
Red-eyed Vireo	33	1	12	-
Gray Catbird	9	-	1	-
Veery	4	-	2	-
Swainson's Thrush	10	-	2	-
Ovenbird	1	-	2	-
Worm-eating Warbler	1	-	1	-
Northern Waterthrush	4	-	2	1
Black-and-white Warbler	1	-	-	-
Nashville Warbler	1	-	-	-
Common Yellowthroat	87	-	35	-
Hooded Warbler	1	-	-	-
American Redstart	31	-	21	-
Cape May Warbler	5	-	2	-
Northern Parula	3	-	-	-
Magnolia Warbler	1	-	2	-
Yellow Warbler	1	-	-	-
Blackpoll Warbler	-	-	1	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	11	-	1	-
Western Palm Warbler	5	-	13	-
Yellow Palm Warbler	1	-	-	-
Prairie Warbler	1	-	1	-
Canada Warbler	-	-	1	-
Summer Tanager	1	-	-	-
Scarlet Tanager	1	-	1	-
Northern Cardinal	-	-	-	1
Painted Bunting	3	3	2	3
White-eyed Vireo	-	1	-	1

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	218	105	323
# of Recaptures	5	6	11
# of Species	24	22	29
Effort (net-hours)	200	176.4	376.4
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	111.5	62.9	88.74
# of Nets	32	28

2025 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	1,979	1,160	3,139
# of Recaptures	271	255	526
# of Species	57	50	66
Effort (net-hours)	6492.8	4508.2	11,001
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	34.7	31.4	33.3
# of Days	43	36

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Michael Gamble (CS)

Liz Held (LB)

Arden Schneider (CS)

Camille Beckwith (LB)

Jeremiah Sullivan (CS)

Amy Nickerson (LB)

Keegan Foster (LB) 

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.