Last Saturday, Patrick and I helped band birds with Anna Pigeon, Patrick's adviser's wife and also one of Patrick's committee members. We camped at the site in the Baraboo hills on Friday night and woke up early the next morning to set the nets. Most of the nets were in more natural meadow and wetland habitat, but Anna couldn't resist setting one by the bird feeder at the farmhouse. This ended up catching a whole lot of goldfinches, including some repeat offenders.
We checked the nets about every 20 minutes so that entangled birds wouldn't struggle for too long. Extracting a bird from the net is a delicate process.
Volker, Patrick's adviser, instructs a grad student about how to untangle a bird from the net. He used certain holds to support the bird's joints and head as he pulled the strings off of it.
After the birds were extracted from the net, we put them into cloth bags to hold them safely and calm them down. Patrick hangs some bagged birds in a cupboard built for this purpose. Once the doors are shut the birds will be in the dark. This also calms them down until people are ready to band them.
We usually had two teams of two people each--one to hold the bird and take measurements (which required some experience) and another to write everything down.
A troop of boy scouts was camping at the preserve, so they got to watch the banding and help release some birds. Anna explained what she was doing and how banding lets scientists track birds' migratory paths and assess habitat quality.
A downy woodpecker.
Pliers are used to bend a metal band with a unique number around the bird's ankle. The bands are issued by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which keeps track of the data collected about each bird and notifies Anna whenever one of the birds she banded is recaptured. Some of these birds are year-round residents, but many winter in Central and South America.
This is a red-bellied woodpecker. The banders used a thick guidebook to determine the birds' age and other characteristics based on things like wing feather patterns.
This kid was really excited about releasing the birds. Here he learns how to release a blue jay. First cup it upside down...
...then slowly flip it over into the other hand...
...then wait for it to fly away!
But this one needed some encouragement.
The indigo buntings were my favorite. The males are completely blue, and iridescent.
Fred blows back the indigo bunting's feathers to look at its belly fat. The amount of fat helps indicate how much food is available in the bird's habitat.
C'mon, look at the camera!
With all the babies in Patrick's lab these days, banding was quite a family affair. Baby Bea was just enchanted with Patrick's goofy faces.
A rose-breasted grosbeak. If you look closely, you can see that he is digging his claws into Fred's finger.
The grosbeaks were LOUD! They did not like this process and let everyone know about it.
They are handsome birds, though.
This hold was good for photographing the bird, but usually ended up with someone's hand getting pecked. This was especially bad with woodpeckers.
This one didn't want to let go, even when we were trying to release it.
Bea gets her first up-close look at a goldfinch.
A goldfinch gets its first up-close look at Bea.
Volker untangles a Baltimore oriole (also called a northern oriole).
Measuring wing length. For each bird we recorded the net where it was captured, its species, sex, wing and tail length, fat, body condition, and band number. When we had time, we also weighed them.
Now you can see the band around his ankle.
Is this over yet?
