Banding the Little Guys

At the banding station we recorded each bird's identification: band number species, sex (how you know), age/year, body fat, Flight feather fat, flight feather wear, weight etc. There were about band sizes he had and we recorded the birds data according to its size.

It was most interesting to me how you could retrieve this information and what it meant. For example the bird specialist showed us how to blow on the belly through a straw and see how much of the fat their was. Birds naturally have a hollow on their stomach and if the hollow is filled with fat, it is a key give away that the bird is probably on a migratory root. Another trick he showed us was wetting a finger and robbing the crown of the bird to determine its age. He also uses, as Doc calls it 'The Bird Bible" by Peter Pyle which helped to see the different stages of the crown. As the bird develops it covers more of its head with feathers.

Eight different species flew into the black thin net. The smallest of which was a Eastern Pheobe with a mass of 5.2g.

It was a great opportunity to be able to see and i definitely gained knowledge that i wouldn't be able to on a normal birding day. However I prefer watching the birds from a distance through binoculars and identifying them through their field marks.