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Bird Banding at Eastman Nature Center
5/9/08
5/8/08
5/6/08
Sunday, May 11, 2008
12:25:00 PM EDT
Hearing The song of a Baltimore Oriole in our back yard
Hi Blog readers! Yesterday Carolyn wanted to get some yard work done so I headed to the Eastman Nature Center , which is part of Elm Creek park to witness one of the bird bandings.
The first thing I noticed was that one of the volunteers who gathers the birds from the nets was using my same camera. It was nice to see that others are concluding that this camera is ideal for bird lovers.
The naturalist doing the bird banding is a very experienced man named Ron who is exceptionally patient with answering the same questions over and over from the girl scouts and other children that came that morning. The process as I've written in here before goes like this. Birds are gathered from nets in various locations and placed in little cloth bags held shut by clothes pins and hung up on a line like the morning wash as they await banding. Ron removes one of the bags and carefully removes one of the birds, not knowing what he will find till he opens it. Then he looks to see if the bird was banded and if it was he reads the number to his assistant Janine (don't know if I spelled her name right) She then checks it's history on her sheets to find out what they know about the bird. Next he checks the bird for age and sex and weighs it in a little bag and deducts the weight of the bag which Janine then records for future records. While he is doing all this he speaks to us, his audience, and tells us little stories about birds and banding and bird behavior. It is really quite interesting. I found out for instance why we have seen so many yellow rumped warblers and so few other warblers. The season is late and the yellow rumped and the yellow palm warblers are usually ahead in the migration department.
The first bird I saw as I came in was a female cardinal. After it was weighed and discussed Paul took it out for release.
usually Paul likes to have children do this but this bird could hurt one of them so he did the release himself. 
He must have tough fingers by now.
I went back in watched as Ron went through a variety of birds including Palm and Yellow Rumped Warblers, chicadees, goldfinch, Rose breasted grossbeak and several others.
This is what you see at the bandings as he examines the birds under the light from all sides including wing measurements. Janine records it all.
So that was the bird banding. Now this morning I will finish up by showing our new found Baltimore Oriole who sings in the yard all day now. I have some video too but I'll put that up at a later date. If you want them in your back yard put out Grape Jelly but put it out often because he's not the only one in your yard with a sweet tooth.
Enjoy the day my friends.
Ron
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12:25:00 PM EDT
Hearing The song of a Baltimore Oriole in our back yard
Bird Banding at Eastman Nature Center
The first thing I noticed was that one of the volunteers who gathers the birds from the nets was using my same camera. It was nice to see that others are concluding that this camera is ideal for bird lovers.
The naturalist doing the bird banding is a very experienced man named Ron who is exceptionally patient with answering the same questions over and over from the girl scouts and other children that came that morning. The process as I've written in here before goes like this. Birds are gathered from nets in various locations and placed in little cloth bags held shut by clothes pins and hung up on a line like the morning wash as they await banding. Ron removes one of the bags and carefully removes one of the birds, not knowing what he will find till he opens it. Then he looks to see if the bird was banded and if it was he reads the number to his assistant Janine (don't know if I spelled her name right) She then checks it's history on her sheets to find out what they know about the bird. Next he checks the bird for age and sex and weighs it in a little bag and deducts the weight of the bag which Janine then records for future records. While he is doing all this he speaks to us, his audience, and tells us little stories about birds and banding and bird behavior. It is really quite interesting. I found out for instance why we have seen so many yellow rumped warblers and so few other warblers. The season is late and the yellow rumped and the yellow palm warblers are usually ahead in the migration department.
The first bird I saw as I came in was a female cardinal. After it was weighed and discussed Paul took it out for release.
I went back in watched as Ron went through a variety of birds including Palm and Yellow Rumped Warblers, chicadees, goldfinch, Rose breasted grossbeak and several others.
This is what you see at the bandings as he examines the birds under the light from all sides including wing measurements. Janine records it all.
So that was the bird banding. Now this morning I will finish up by showing our new found Baltimore Oriole who sings in the yard all day now. I have some video too but I'll put that up at a later date. If you want them in your back yard put out Grape Jelly but put it out often because he's not the only one in your yard with a sweet tooth.
Enjoy the day my friends.
Ron
Written by rontaube Blog about this entry |
Add to del.icio.us | digg this
5/12/08 11:01 PM
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