FOS Saltmarsh Sparrow, Merlin, and Eastern Phoebe

 CAPTAIN SAMS

It was another decent day at Captain Sams with 57 new birds and 26 previously banded birds captured. It is warming up again and starting to slow down after our incredible weekend of bird migration. We did capture a first of season Saltmarsh Sparrow. This species winters in the saltmarshes on Kiawah and throughout the salt marshes along the Atlantic coast from southern New Jersey through the northern half of Florida . They are in rapid decline due to coastal development and sea level rise and without significant management intervention, could go extinct within the next few decades. 

Saltmarsh Sparrow (hatch year, unknown sex)

-Michael

LITTLE BEAR

Today at Little Bear we ended the day with 58 new birds and 17 recaps. With temps on the rise again we only banded for 4.5 hours, and I was super sweaty for the first time in a couple days. We had no luck in the pond net today... the peeps and herons might be onto us. Although we had no luck in the pond, we had another exciting visitor to our normal nets today, a good ol Merlin. These guys are smaller falcons, not much larger than Kestrels. Fun fact time! Merlins have been observed teaming up to hunt flocks of waxwings. One bird will attack from below and the other takes advantage of the confusion. They also don't build their own nests, and instead take over old raptor nests like a bunch of freeloaders. As with most raptors, the one today looked pretty flummoxed while we were banding it. Since the one we got today was pretty large, we determined it was a female after taking some measurements. Hopefully some more raptors get caught up in our nets! 

Merlin, hatch year, female

-Aiden 

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Yellow-billed Cuckoo	1	-	-	-
Merlin	-	-	1	-
Eastern Phoebe	-	-	1	-
White-eyed Vireo	1	2	1	-
Red-eyed Vireo	2	1	3	-
Carolina Chickadee	1	-	-	-
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher	-	-	1	-
Northern House Wren	1	-	-	1
Gray Catbird	12	6	8	3
Brown Thrasher	-	-	1	-
Swainson's Thrush	2	-	-	-
Saltmarsh Sparrow	1	-	-	-
Eastern Towhee	-	-	1	-
Yellow-breasted Chat	-	-	1	-
Ovenbird	1	2	1	-
Northern Waterthrush	2	-	1	1
Black-and-white Warbler	-	-	1	-
Common Yellowthroat	22	9	20	-
American Redstart	3	3	8	1
Northern Parula	1	1	-	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	2	-	-	-
Palm Warbler (Western)	1	-	2	-
Summer Tanager	1	-	-	-
Northern Cardinal	2	-	-	-
Painted Bunting	1	2	1	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	57	52	109
# of Recaptures	26	6	32
# of Species	18	17	25
Effort (net-hours)	171.2	126.0	297.2
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	48.5	46.0	47.4
# of Nets	33	28	61

2026 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	2136	1298	3434
# of Recaptures	266	148	414
# of Species	49	56	67
Effort (net-hours)	6585.8	4277.9	10863.7
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	36.5	33.8	35.4
# of Days	45	38

Banding Staff

Michael Gamble (CS)

Nancy Raginski (CS)

Liz Held (LB)

Olivia DeMarchi (LB)

Jasmine Fu (CS)

Baxter Shirley (CS)

Aiden Gifford (LB)

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.