Sullivan's Island Bird Banding Station Fall 2021 Recap

    The volunteers at the Sullivan's Island Bird Banding Station contributed many hours of their time to assist in net set-up, extracting birds, scribing data, and much more. This season would not have been possible without the help of our devoted volunteers! The station was operated for a total of 41 banding days this Fall season. 934 birds were banded from 41 different species. A maximum of 10 mist nets were opened each day. 

    SIBBS is located in the Protected Land at Station 16. This easement is filled with high quality stopover habitat, including early successional scrubland and mid-successional maritime forest habitat. Seven net lanes are located in scrubland habitat and three net lanes are located in the maritime forest. The scrubland habitat is ideal for banding birds in the Fall, since the canopy is low and songbirds are foraging in the wax myrtles, cedars and other low-lying vegetation. Lower numbers of birds are captured in the maritime forest nets, which is likely because songbirds that tend to forage higher in the canopy will pass over the nets. 

                                   The scrubland habitat at sunrise.  

The top five species banded this season were:

Gray Catbird: 370

Myrtle Warbler: 275

Common Yellowthroat: 94

Red-eyed Vireo: 26

American Redstart: 24

Data collected at this site indicated that Gray Catbirds are utilizing the Protected Land mainly as a stopover location in the Fall. Smaller numbers of overwintering birds have also been banded in February and March. Data collected during the Spring and Summer indicates that Gray Catbirds are most likely not breeding in the area.

                                                                       Gray Catbird 

Myrtle Warblers are common winter residents in our area. The bulk of the MYWA we banded this Fall were hatching year birds. Since we have had very few recaptures of MYWA in the last two years, it is unclear if the individuals we banded overwintered in the Protected Land or if they were simply passing through the area. 

Female Myrtle Warbler

    Please take a look at our species totals for Fall 2021! 

Table 1. Winter Resident Species Totals for Fall 2021

Winter Resident Species	Scientific Name	Total
Black-and-white Warbler	Mniotilta varia		1
Eastern Phoebe	Sayornis phoebe		1
House Wren	Troglodytes aedon		9
Myrtle Warbler	Setophaga coronata		225
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	Regulus calendula		12
Savannah Sparrow	Passerculus sandwichensis		1
Song Sparrow	Melospiza melodia		6
Swamp Sparrow	Melospiza georgiana		2
Western Palm Warbler	Setophaga palmarum		19
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker	Sphyrapicus varius		3
Total			279

Table 1. Species within their wintering range banded in Fall 2021.

 

                                                   Savannah Sparrow, a winter resident, banded on Oct 24th

Table 2. Neotropical Migrant Species Totals for Fall 2021

Neotropical Migrant Species	Scientific Name	Total
American Redstart	Setophaga ruticilla	24
Black-throated Blue Warbler	Setophaga caerulescens	9
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher	Polioptila caerulia	1
Common Yellowthroat*	Geothlypis trichas	94
Gray Catbird*	Dumetella carolinensis	370
Hooded Warbler	Setophaga citrina	1
Louisiana Waterthrush	Parkesia motacilla	1
Magnolia Warbler	Setophaga magnolia	2
Northern Parula	Setophaga americana	4
Northern Waterthrush	Parkesia noveboracensis	9
Ovenbird	Seiurus aurocapilla	3
Painted Bunting	Passerina ciris	12
Prairie Warbler	Setophaga discolor	15
Prothonotary Warbler	Protonotaria citrea	2
Red-eyed Vireo	Vireo olivaceus	26
Swainson's Thrush	Catharus ustulatus	2
Traill's Flycatcher	Empidonax traillii/alnorum	3
Veery	Catharus fuscescens	1
White-eyed Vireo*	Vireo griseus	17
Yellow Warbler	Setophaga petechia	6
Yellow-billed Cuckoo	Coccyzus americanus	3
Yellow-breasted Chat	Icteria virens	1
Total		606

  Table 10. Neotropical migrants banded during the Fall 2021 migration season.

*Some individuals do overwinter in coastal SC. The majority of birds banded from this species had substantial fat stores, indicating that they were most likely using the area as a stopover location. Subsequent recaptures in Spring 2022 may provide evidence of overwintering individuals.

 

                                                Hatching year male Black-throated Blue Warbler

 

Table 11. Non-migratory Resident Species Fall 2020

Non-migratory Resident Species	Scientific Name	Total
Blue Jay	Cyanocitta cristata	1
Brown Thrasher	Toxostoma rufum	7
Carolina Chickadee	Poecile carolinensis	7
Carolina Wren	Thryothorus ludovicianus	5
Cooper's Hawk	Accipiter cooperii	1
Downy Woodpecker	Picoides pubescens	1
Eastern Towhee	Pipilo erythrophthalmus	4
Northern Cardinal	Cardinalis cardinalis	23
Total		49

        

                  Table 11. Non-migratory Residents banded in Fall 2021.

                                                    Male Eastern Towhee

Recapture data is important for a variety of reasons: It is a way to collect information about longevity (life spans) as well as site fidelity to wintering grounds, breeding grounds, and stopover locations. Please take a look at our recapture data for this season:

Recaptures

Table 15. Recaptures of the Summer and Fall 2021 Season

Species	Scientific Name	Number of Recaps
Field Sparrow	Spizella pusilla	1
Eastern Towhee	Pipilo erythrophthalmus	1
Northern Cardinal	Cardinalis cardinalis	10
Painted Bunting	Passerina ciris	1
Red-eyed Vireo	Vireo olivaceus	1
White-eyed Vireo	Vireo griseus	1
Myrtle Warbler	Setophaga coronata	1
Prairie Warbler	Setophaga discolor	1
American Redstart	Setophaga ruticilla	1
Gray Catbird	Dumetella carolinensis	15
Carolina Wren	Thryothorus ludovicianus	3
House Wren	Troglodytes aedon	2
Carolina Chickadee	Poecile carolinensis	6
Total:		44

Table 15. Recaptured individuals banded in Summer and Fall 2021.

Table 16. Recaptured individuals of Fall 2021 banded in prior banding seasons

Species	Band Number	Original Banding Date	Recapture date(s)
Field Sparrow	2890-06682	11/13/2020	11/01/2021
Painted Bunting	1851-96102	04/21/2020	4/21/2021, 09/28/2021
Gray Catbird	1681-45830	11/17/2020	11/16/2021

 

Table 16. Recaptured individuals banded in prior banding seasons at SIBBS.  

    The Field Sparrow recaptured on November 1st showed site fidelity to its wintering grounds. Field Sparrows do overwinter in our area, so this is a clear example of site fidelity in this species. 

                                                

                                            Field Sparrow recaptured on November 21st

The Gray Catbird recaptured on November 17th is most likely an example of site fidelity to a stopover location. The bird had substantial fat stores, indicating that it had stopped in the area to gain additional fat stores before completing its Fall migration. More data collection is necessary to determine if Gray Catbirds use the Protected Land as a stopover or overwintering location year-to-year.

Finally, the adult male Painted Bunting originally banded on April 21st 2020 (as you have probably read in my prior posts...) was recaptured on April 21st 2021 in the same net. He stuck around for the duration of the breeding season and was recaptured once again on September 28th. This is a noteworthy recapture, since it shows site fidelity to breeding grounds in a Neotropical migrant. This is also a clear example that the Protected Land contains suitable breeding habitat for Painted Buntings. Additional data collected this summer shows that Painted Buntings are breeding in the Protected Land. Two females with brood patches were banded in July and August and two SY males were in breeding condition were banded in May and June. 

                                            

                                            AHY Male Painted Bunting (above)

 

                                          HY Painted Bunting, sex unknown (Above)

Once more, I would like to thank the SIBBS volunteers for their many hours of work this Fall. This research would not be possible without the help of volunteers!!  Volunteering for a banding station is not easy and it requires stamina, patience and devotion to the noble cause of field work. In the Spring especially, you oftentimes find yourself doing net runs in the heat hour after hour with no birds and plenty of bugs. But 20 days in, you might recapture that Painted Bunting that you banded long ago on another hot and humid Charleston summer. 

As a final note, I'd like to emphasize my commitment to bird safety and human safety. Sullivan's Island has an unforgivingly hot climate at least 6 months of the year. I try to keep an eye on folks and make sure they are hydrated and not getting overheated.  Temperature, humidity, wind, and cloud cover are closely monitored at the station and nets are closed when it becomes too hot, too windy, or in any other case of impending inclement weather. Standard opening time is one half hour before sunrise and standard closing time is 11am; however, Spring and Summer closing times were always closer to 9 or 9:30am and many of the dunes nets were often closed by 8:30am. Net rounds are started every 20 minutes and all of the nets are taken down at the end of the day. Many banding stations on private or more remote locations have the luxury of leaving up their nets furled at the end of each banding day, but we have to take ours down at the end of the day and set them back up early each morning. This adds an extra hour at least and you always run the risk of accidentally dropping a net in the dark and spending an additional 20 minutes taking out twigs and briars. We all made it through this season and I hope that everyone enjoyed themselves along the way!

If you are still interested in volunteering for SIBBS (after hearing about all the glamours of field work!) you can email me at sullivansislandbirds@gmail.com and I will send you additional information about volunteering. Our "Spring" field season runs from Feb to May and Fall runs from Sept to Nov. Volunteers must arrive at opening and stay until closing. If you are interested in visiting the station, you can also email me and I will send you info about planning a visit. 

--Sarah Díaz

Director

Sullivan's Island Bird Banding Station