Banding at Dam Pond

This past weekend we went to the north fork at dam pond to band birds. We saw many birds during this trip. We learned how to catch and band bird. Banding a brid is when you catch the bird in a banding net, After you have caught the bird you must record its information and determine whether it is a juvenile or adult and if it is a female or male. After you classify the bird you put an aluminum band around the birds leg. The band has a specific number on it so if caught again you can tell that you have caught and recorded the bird before. This method is often used for mapping projects to see where birds migrate to over the winter. One of the bird we saw was a myrtle warbler. This was a very energetic bird, when we had it in the cloth bag after we removed it from the net it was going crazy in the bag. We also so a type of woodpecker that we haven’t identified on a trip before. The woodpecker was all black with white spots on all coverts. We also saw a catbird, it was identified by its all gray body and swallow tail feather. When we were leaving thpark we saw a very rare bird in the parking lot. It had a yellow head with a black mask, sort of like a raccoon. It was probably one of the most colorful birds I have seen.