Eagerly Awaiting the Cold Front

 CAPTAIN SAMS

Today was a carbon copy of the last couple of days with 31 new birds and 4 recaptures. We had the pleasure of hosting the Master Naturalist Class led by Keith McCullough and Kristina Wheeler of Charleston County Parks and Recreation. While we didn't have a spectacular diversity of species today, we got to share almost every bird we caught today and was able to talk more about each one. 

As the title implies, we are patiently (impatiently) awaiting a cold front which should arrive sometime on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning. This seem like this will a dry cold front (at least for us) with moderate north winds. Birdcast shows that migration for Thursday and Friday should be very heavy. 

 

-Aaron

LITTLE BEAR

Today was a weird weather day out at Little Bear. After a decent first round, we got briefly rained on. All of the different weather apps disagreed on how long the rain would last so we closed the nets for a bit. It turned out to not rain for very long, so we reopened and were able to catch another 12 or so birds. We ended up getting sprinkled on again, while the sun was also trying to come out, but it passed by quickly and we were able to stay open. We had a total of 29 birds today with 24 new and 5 recaptures of 13 species. Besides the usual bundle of Common Yellowthroats, the highlights were a few Northern Yellow Warblers, a few Western Palm Warblers, a Black-throated Blue, a Northern Mockingbird, and a Downy Woodpecker. We also processed a couple of Red-eyed Vireos that have definitely been hanging out and feasting as they were quite chunky. You know a bird has a high fat score when it makes the bander giggle as they blow on the feathers to check for fat. 

-Liz

Species	Captain Sam's		Little Bear
	New	Recaps	New	Recaps
Downy Woodpecker	-	-	1	-
Red-eyed Vireo	2	-	2	-
Carolina Chickadee	-	-	-	1
Carolina Wren	-	-	-	2
Gray Catbird	1	1	-	-
Brown Thrasher	-	1	-	-
Northern Mockingbird	-	-	1	-
Veery	2	-	-	-
Yellow-breasted Chat	1	-	-	-
Northern Waterthrush	3	-	1	1
Common Yellowthroat	18	1	7	-
American Redstart	-	-	1	-
Northern Yellow Warbler	-	-	3	-
Black-throated Blue Warbler	2	-	1	-
Western Palm Warbler	-	-	4	-
Prairie Warbler	1	-	1	-
Painted Bunting	1	1	2	1
	-	-	-	-
	-	-	-	-

Today's Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	31	24	55
# of Recaptures	4	5	9
# of Species	10	13	17
Effort (net-hours)	155.1	121.3	276.4
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	22.6	23.9	23.2
# of Nets	33	28	-

2026 Fall Cumulative Banding Stats	Captain Sams	Little Bear	TOTAL
# Birds Banded	1,075	621	1,696
# of Recaptures	201	117	318
# of Species	39	44	52
Effort (net-hours)	5,253.3	3,263.8	8,517.1
Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours)	24.3	22.6	23.6
# of Days	38	31

Banding Staff

Aaron Given (CS)

Michael Gamble (CS)

Liz Held (LB)

Olivia DeMarchi (LB)

Aidan Boyle (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.