BANDING THOSE BAD BOYS

As far as my first group birding experience goes, this was definitely an interesting time...

We all trekked our ways over(ferries and all) to the north fork, the place I reluctantly call my other home, and arrived at Dam Pond in Orient. We parked and walked down some nature trails into multiple little paths, one of which consisted a large, but fine net. In the net, we inexperienced birders already saw two birds caught in it before we got there.

Shocked and confused, we walked up a slightly different path, where a desk, a box filled with various and strange tools, a few chairs and a man awaited us. Binoculars around our neck, and cameras in hand, we looked the part, but were soon put in our place by our severe lack of knowledge on banding birds.

I was up first for recording because I was labeled as having "nice handwriting". Later, we found I simply had innate talent when it came to recording banded birds, which worked in my favor and I went twice. Between the pressure to go first and the constant brusque remarks of our teacher, I was very stressed and wanted to get everything right. However, I was later comforted after the other recorders had ugly handwriting or messed up [Gaby we all still love you, including the birds :)]. Eventually, I had to blow on one of the birds to find out if it had fat, and didn't blow hard enough, so the teacher got frustrated. Then... I went to open the tag for the bird on the little pliers he had, and he told me to "figure it out". I was very frightened.

Later, I held the bird we classified as the "white breasted nuthatch", and it was squawking and screaming, and I was scared, not going to lie. I let it go like all the others and it could not get away fast enough. After we had identified 8 other birds, coming in with a total of 9 branded by us alone, we were able to recognize the swamp sparrow because of its rusty colored wings. We saw a Golden Crown Kinglet, which is self explanatory. Next, we got a Myrtle Warbler, the White Breasted Nuthatch, a Downy Woodpecker with beautiful white spots and a harsh beak, a gray Catbird, a Tufted Titmouse [:)], an adorable, tiny Ruby Crowned Kinglet (which I kept saying I just wanted to eat it because it was so cute), and finally a Phoebe.

I would say this was definitely and interesting and successful first group birding trip, and I can not wait for the next one :)