After two more successful nights of spotlight captures in May, Daryl came up with a target: 100 banded Xantus’s murrelets in 2009. We banded birds in April, too, so those counted, as did the few captures Daryl, Harry, and others did on land. Nonetheless, on the last night, we had to band 22 new XAMU – recaptures and other species didn’t count!
Augie and his first Xantus's murrelet!
In order to energize our capturing crew we made a list of the birds we needed. Naming them alphabetically, like hurricanes, we counted from 22 to one. Even with a broken net, it was a success!
Our list of birds to catch. "Is there anything we can't catch?" said Daryl
Kristen and the 9th-to-last murrelet, named "Kristen", observing the list.