Despite the strong wind this morning,
we had a fairly good day at Captain Sam’s with 73 new birds and 20 recaptures, consisting
of 20 species. More than half of the birds
we handled today were captured during the first net run before the wind had
really started to pick up. The highlight
of the morning was our first-of-the-season Savannah Sparrow. Although Savannah Sparrows are a fairly
common sparrow in the area during the fall and winter, it is very seldom that
we actually catch them in our nets.
Savannah Sparrows prefer more open habitats that can be found in the
dunes and marshes surrounding the outer edges of the netting area. So we were quite lucky to have this individual
wander into one of our nets this morning.
-Mattie
 |
| Savannah Sparrow (hatch year) |
Little Bear
We finally got the all clear to return to Little Bear today. We were greeted with strong winds from the south-west which increased over the morning causing us to shut down 4 of our 15 nets to prevent injury to the birds.
Despite that downside it was a good morning's banding with 118 new birds and 5 recaptures of 16 species. First of the season bird was a Black-throated Green Warbler and two new species for the site were Blue-winged Warbler and Swamp Sparrow. Gray Catbirds dominated the catch this morning - 64% of the catch.
Two of the recaptured birds, a Northern Cardinal and a Carolina Chickadee, were banded on the first day of banding at Little Bear making them the oldest recaps for the site so far at 36 days!
The Blue-winged Warbler was a record the 1000th new bird for the site! Today's catch means we have now banded 1,085 birds since the nets were opened on 7th September.
 |
| Black-throated Green Warbler (Hatch year male) |
 |
| Blue-winged Warbler (Hatch year female) - 1000th bird banded at Little Bear |
| Species | Captain Sam's | Little Bear | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New | Recaps | New | Recaps | |
| Eastern Wood-pewee | 1 | - | - | - |
| Eastern Phoebe | 3 | - | - | - |
| White-eyed Vireo | - | 1 | 3 | - |
| Red-eyed Vireo | 1 | - | - | - |
| Carolina Chickadee | - | 1 | - | 2 |
| Carolina Wren | - | 1 | - | 1 |
| Ruby-crowned Kinglet | 1 | - | - | - |
| Gray Catbird | 40 | 13 | 75 | 1 |
| Northern Mockingbird | - | - | 1 | - |
| Blue-winged Warbler | - | - | 1 | - |
| Northern Parula | 1 | - | - | - |
| Yellow Warbler | - | - | 1 | - |
| Black-throated Blue Warbler | 3 | - | - | - |
| Black-throated Green Warbler | - | - | 1 | - |
| Prairie Warbler | 2 | - | - | - |
| Palm Warbler (Western) | 2 | - | 7 | - |
| Black-and-white Warbler | 1 | - | - | - |
| American Redstart | - | 1 | 4 | - |
| Northern Waterthrush | 1 | - | 2 | - |
| Ovenbird | 1 | - | - | - |
| Common Yellowthroat | 11 | 2 | 17 | - |
| Savannah Sparrow | 1 | - | - | - |
| Swamp Sparrow | - | - | 1 | - |
| Northern Cardinal | - | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Indigo Bunting | 2 | - | 1 | - |
| Painted Bunting | 2 | - | 3 | - |
| Banding Stats | Captain Sam's | Little Bear | TOTAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| # Birds Banded | 73 | 118 | 191 |
| # of Recaptures | 20 | 5 | 25 |
| # of Species | 16 | 16 | 26 |
| Effort (net-hours) | 118.25 | 63.61 | 181.86 |
| Capture Rate (birds/100 net-hours) | 78.6 | 193.4 | 118.8 |
| Nets | 25 | 15 | 35 |
Banding Staff
Aaron Given (CS)
Mattie VandenBoom (CS)
Chris Snook (LB)
Nancy Raginski (LB)
Sean McElaney (LB)
Casey Weissburg (CS)
Michael Gamble (CS)
Ryan Donnelly (CS)
