The Secret Lives of Birds

Bill Teetz bands yellow-breasted chat. CG photo

Armchair Adventures

by Paul Sullivan

May 27, 2012 

 

Banding-For the Birds

            When I was a little boy, someone gave me a book called "Bill and the Bird Bander." It told the story of a kid who learned about birds from someone who banded them.

            That book disappeared in the ensuing decades, in a series of moves my folks made, and I had forgotten it until this morning. Or I certainly thought I had.

            But the memory plays strange tricks, for I planned to write about a visit to a bird banding station last Saturday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge near Woodbridge. And then, from nowhere, I remembered that old book.

            There is little doubt that the book had an impact, as I have been chasing birds for more than 60 years now. Yet, oddly enough, last Saturday was the first time I had ever gone to a banding station for a close-up look at what's done there.

            Suzanne Miller, a licensed master bird bander, has volunteered at the station since it opened in 2001. She was one of four volunteers manning the station. Nearby, a series of 17 nearly invisible mist nets snag small songbirds for study.

            Betsy True, who had told me about the station, took my friend, CG and I to see how it operates. We met in a parking lot and "birded" our way along half a mile or so of trails through fields and along woodland edges to the station. We tallied a dozen or so species on the walk in and several more on the trip out.

            The banding station was a small shelter in a thick mixed hardwood forest with heavy undergrowth. Four volunteers checked the nets each half hour. Business had been slow, they said.

             But things began to pick up in late morning. First a northern waterthrush, then a Carolina wren, a cowbird, followed by a tufted titmouse and another wren. And on the last net-check of the day, voila! A male yellow-breasted chat. A female chat had been captured earlier that morning.

            The chat, while not a rarity, is not easy to see as it hides in heavy undergrowth. It is a large member of the warbler family that keeps itself well out of sight most of the time. I have probably only had a good look at a chat four or five times. Hard as it is to see, it's an easy bird to hear, with a boisterous, rowdy series of notes. Learn that call and you learn that the bird is not so rare.

            The banders bring their catches to a table at the station. There, with a swift efficiency, they note the species, look for previous leg bands, check its weight and gender (they "sex it"), take measurements, note its age and breeding condition. If there is no band, one of the tiny, numbered bands is attached to a leg.

            All info on the bird is carefully logged.

            Then comes the fun part.

            Visitors may be offered the chance to release a bird. There is a quick lesson-hold it thus; release it like this…

            I would never have guessed what a thrill it is to hold a live bird for release into the wild.

            "Would you like to release it?" asked Kevin Hewes, a bander at the Woodbridge refuge.

            He handed me a cowbird. It seemed so small. The bird settled into my right hand and I firmly but gently placed its neck between two fingers of my left hand.

            The bird peered at me as it sat on my right palm, my left hand restraining it. Someone shot photos; the bird wanted to fly.

            Just like that, I eased the grip on my left fingers and it vanished. It departed so fast my eyes could scarcely track it.

            Shortly before noon, the nets were checked one final time. No birds. The nets were lowered and rolled; equipment stored.

            The banding station operates during the spring migration of transient species. That season is nearing an end. Wednesday was the final scheduled day.

            For the 2012 season, Miller said she expects a total of around 430-plus birds will have been caught, examined and released. And yes, she said, birds previously tagged are often netted again.

            Since 2001, the year of fewest birds tagged was 358; the high was 807. The smallest bird snagged was a ruby-throated hummingbird; the largest, a green heron.

            Data gathered here is fed into a database of the U.S. Geological Survey, which licenses the banding station.

            As we walked back to the car, I found myself thinking that, if I lived a lot closer to the refuge, I would have to volunteer as a bird bander.