Bird Banding

This morning we got up early and made our way to the Occoquan Wildlife Refuge to take part in bird banding.  Tall nets are set up near bushes and capture any small birds who fly into them.  Today 36 birds were caught.  Ethan was watching the nets for us waiting for birds to fly in.

Each bag contains one bird.  Normally, only a couple of birds are in the nets at a time but we were luck enough to have 15 wablers fly into the nets right after we arrived at the banding station.

The bird people banded each bird's leg and recorded the band number.

They identified and sexed.  This bird is a male yellow-rumped warbler.  Then their wings and tail lengths are measured.

Then they are weighed.  They are placed head down into a small tube on a scale.

Their feathers are checked to estimate age and to see if they are molting and/or forming a brood pack.  This signifies that these birds are here to stay and nest.  They are getting rid of feathers in order to keep their eggs warm.  The feathers insulate the bird's body but the bird needs to be able to share its body heat with its eggs and so needs to loose some of its underside feathers.  If the bird is just passing through on migration then it will have pockets of fat and have not started molting yet.

If you look closely, you can see little white lines on this bird's back.  They look like rice.  These are the points of the new feathers coming in.

Then came the best part of all - getting to hold the little birds and letting them go.

This was a male red-winged blackbird.

holding a bird

and then releasing the bird - yippee!

As we were leaving, we saw an osprey eating a fish but didn't get a very good picture of it.

Here is an osprey at its nest.

Below are some GREAT pictures of another group's bird banding catch.  I'd love to be able to hold these birds and to have a camera that can take great pictures like this!

October 2007 they even caught a bat - cool!!!

September 2007

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