Bird Banding! guest post by Meghan Jacklin

Ever wonder what it’s like to be a biologist? It is a truly rewarding career, but it might not be what you expect! Read on to learn about what a career in biology can be like, in a post from our guest writer Meghan Jacklin.

My name is Meghan, and I am a biologist in Edmonton Alberta. I was first inspired to care about wildlife and natural areas from a young age through my love of wolves, and my family canoeing and camping activities. I struggled to find the right education, until I heard about the Environmental sciences program at the U of A. I got my bachelors degree in Conservation Biology, and then it was time to head out into the real world!

Meghan (right) and a coworker, birding despite rain AND mosquitos!

During my degree I started volunteering for a local organization called the Beaverhill Bird Observatory. That is where things got really interesting. The Beaverhill bird observatory studies bird migration through bird banding. But what is bird banding?

Bird banding means putting a lightweight metal band with a unique number on a bird's leg. If this bird is ever caught or found dead somewhere else in the world, we have learned valuable information about that bird and where it traveled!

 Neat! But why do this?

About 40% of the worlds 10,000 bird species are migratory, meaning they spend part of the year in one place and then undertake a large movement to another location for a different part of the year. This can make them uniquely vulnerable – if their habitat, the place that they live, is destroyed or damaged in one area, but not in the other, we may not recognize what the problem is without understanding where birds are migrating to and from.

A banded Dark-eyed Junco

What else do we learn from bird banding?
We also can determine whether a bird hatched this year or is an adult. This helps us understand whether problems are occurring at the breeding grounds (if not many babies are hatching) or if problems are at the wintering grounds (there are enough babies but not many returning adults). We can check roughly how fat a bird is! This is important because some birds migrate hundreds to thousands of kilometres, sometimes without stopping. They must put on lots of weight before starting so they have enough fuel to make it to their journey's end.

How does it actually work?
We first have to get up reeeaaally early, because that is when the birds are around! We get up half an hour before the sun even rises – urg. It is worth it though! We then set up a series of very fine mesh nets, so fine that you can hardly see them. As the birds are flying through the bushes in the early morning, they don’t see the nets, and fly right in.

Can you see this songbird mist net?

Then the staff and volunteers get busy. We check the nets every 30 minutes and remove every caught bird, and place them in individual cloth baggies to bring back to our banding lab. It takes lots of training, and dexterity to carefully take the birds out of the nets! We also get our exercise in, seeing as the distance to check all the nets is around 1 km in length, and we need to walk that every 30 minutes.

Lots of birds in bags,waiting to be banded at the lab!

Once we get back to the lab, we start the banding process. We add the band using special pliers, and this part is actually pretty easy to learn. What’s harder is accurately determining the age and sex of the bird. That requires study and practise, and careful reading of the “bird banding bible” Pyle, the widely accepted expert in North America.

During the banding process, we also get pooped on… a lot! We learn a lot about birds and can help their species to thrive, but no wild bird enjoys being caught, and they let us know! We are covered in poop, and little scratches from beaks and claws by the end of a day. Most songbirds don’t hurt too much when they bite, but if we catch a bird used to cracking seeds – ouch!

An adult Great Horned Owl about to be banded.

 With all that said, bird banding is a very rewarding path for a biologist. Until you start to look and listen, you don’t realize the beautiful colours, shapes, and sizes of the birds right here in our backyards. With all the troubles that birds face, from window strikes, cat predation, habitat loss, and changing climate, it is wonderful to know I am making a difference.
If this sounds right for you, it’s never too early to get started. Many banding stations are open for the public to visit, volunteer, and learn about this important work. Look for one near you!

Bird Banding

My friends Robyn and Mark are bird-watchers. Oh, they do a lot of other things, too, that you can read about on their blog at this link. But it's their bird hobby that I'm envying today. On the first Saturday of October, Robyn and Mark were helping researchers by banding birds. It was a wonderful day for citizen scientists helping experts with hands-on gathering of data!

This bird is a hermit thrush, observing Robyn as carefully as she observes it!

As Robyn says:

This morning Mark and I volunteered with the Rocky Point Bird Observatory banding migrating song birds. We helped with retrieving the birds from the nets (37 today) and entering their info into a database. Very interesting work and it confirmed how much I DON'T know about birds

The nets used to catch birds are almost invisible, and suspended between.posts like a fence. Here's a Chestnut-backed chickadee caught safely in a net. A moment later, a researcher carefully untangled the bird and held it while Robyn and Mark helped to band the bird and write notes about it. The bird banding is also being done at night, when the researchers catch owls.

Here's the whiteboard with notes about the numbers of birds caught, and their types.The total count of birds banded by Rocky Point Bird Observatory after day 74.of their study? 2,486!

You can read more about Rocky Point Bird Observatory at this link to their Facebook page, or go to their own website at this link. 

The Sci/Why Blog has had another post written about volunteering for a bird banding event, and you can read it at this link.
If you want to volunteer with bird studies in your own area, start by looking up provincial resources and try the nearest university biology program to find out who needs you. Don't worry about handling the birds -- even if all you do is write down the information as fast as the expert can say it, you're doing useful work that lets the expert handle the birds. Maybe there's a birdwatching club at the local recreation centre, or a birding store at a mall. The public library will have books on birds and birdwatching as well!

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Reconnecting with Nature in Five Minutes

by Jan Thornhill

House sparrows love cities. (Wikipedia)

It’s May. Before my coffee is ready I let the dog out and sit for a couple of minutes on the early morning porch. I don’t have my glasses on, but I know I’m surrounded by birds, because they’re singing up a storm. The spring songs of the year-rounds — chickadees, mourning doves, blue jays, a woodpecker, distant crows — overlap with the new arrivals — robins, chipping sparrows, a phoebe flycatcher, and the first ovenbird, an early wood warbler. In a week or so, when spring migration goes berserk, on any given morning I should be able to count fifteen or more different kinds of birds within five minutes. In the 25 years since we built our house in the woods, I have seen or heard 121 species on our two acre property. And the house sparrow, so common in cities, is not one of them.

The ovenbird is a seldom seen, but often 
heard woodland warbler. (Louis Agassiz Fuertes)

I had the luxury of growing up spending my free time in fields and woods, environments that nurtured my love of nature. That kind of childhood is all too uncommon today. Now such a huge majority of kids are growing up in urban environments, under much closer supervision, that most have little contact with “natural” habitats. This loss of engagement with nature has dire implications: it is difficult to care about, and work to protect, something you do not know. 

But, wait! As unnatural and lifeless as cities might sometimes seem, they are simply a different sort of natural environment, one that human animals have created, environments that support a startling amount of wildlife.

Blue jays are just as comfortable in cities 
as they are in forests. (Wikipedia)

When I lived part time for a couple of years at my aunt’s house in Toronto, I counted 64 different kinds of birds in her tiny yard and in her trees, a house that was only a ten-minute drive from the CN Tower! At Queen and Bathurst I have seen a kettle of forty turkey vultures swirling in the sky. At Bloor and Yonge, I have looked up and seen a bald eagle soaring south, white head and tail glittering like sequins in the sun. And from a hospital room on University I’ve seen a peregrine falcon streaking by. The only one I’ve ever seen.

I saw a bald eagle heading for Lake Ontario, sailing
high down Yonge St. (Ryan McFarland)

And now it’s May and millions of birds are on the move. One of the wonders of migration season is that birds continue to fly to their summer (or winter) homes using the same flyways their ancestors took, regardless of what cities and towns humans have built in their paths. To see them, you just have to pay attention.

Sometimes you have to look up in the city — you
might see a flock of turkey vultures! (Wikipedia)

I know my birds by song, but before I learned their songs, even when I was a tiny child, I was perfectly capable of distinguishing one song from another. And so can you. In almost any Canadian city — or anywhere else, for that matter — if you go outside and sit quietly for a few minutes, you should be able to hear at least a couple of bird songs, perhaps the irritating chirp, chirp, chirp or house sparrows, or the soothing cooing of pigeons, or the harsh chatter of a magpie, or the gronk of a raven, or one of the multitude of sounds a starling can make. At this time of year, though, if you listen carefully, you may hear many more songs, songs that are less familiar. If you follow a song, you might see a bird you’ve never seen before.

The black-billed cuckoo is a gorgeous, common
bird in Calgary. (John James Audubon)

But you have to go outside. And you have to go outside without your music, without your phone, without your ipad. With nothing but your eyes and ears. Go out early tomorrow morning. Sit quietly with your ears open and your eyes peeled. Who knows what joyous songs you’ll hear? Who knows what fancy mating outfits you’ll see? Five minutes is all you need to connect to whatever your natural habit is.

Resources: 

Please read this important piece by George Monbiot in the Guardian: “If children lose contact with nature they won't fight for it”

Ostrich Oddities and Fun Facts

Baby ostriches - photo by Mink

By Marie Powell

An ostrich is the largest bird alive today, with adults reaching sizes of over nine feet tall. Ostrich chicks are already a foot tall -- as tall as a school ruler -- when they hatch. A wild ostrich can only be found in Africa now, although they're raised on farms in North America and around the world.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to go ostrich-watching on a safari to Africa? The next best thing is an "armchair safari" though books and websites. I found out a lot about ostriches and their habits while researching my children's science book, Meet a Baby Ostrich (Lerner Group, 2015).

For example, an ostrich also lays the largest bird egg, averaging about seven inches long and 3.5 pounds in weight.

Ostrich head - photo by A. Kniesel

Their large eyes are amazing, with long lashes to protect their eyes. With their keen eyesight, they're favourites at the watering hole, often warning other animals if predators are near. These flightless birds have soft feathers on their backs but bristly feathers on their necks and heads -- and their legs are bare.

They're also omnivores, chowing down on seeds, shrubs, fruits, grass, insects, and even small lizards. Like most birds, they swallow pebbles to help them digest food. They can survive for several days without water.

Here are a few suggestions for more information:

• Can You Tell an Ostrich from an Emu? by Buffy Silverman (Lerner 2012)
• Ostrich: The World’s Biggest Bird by Natalie Lunis (Bearport 2007)
• Baby Birds by Bobbie Kalman (Crabtree 2008)
• National Geographic: Ostriches  
• American Ostrich Association: Facts
• Check out Margriet Ruur's safari to Africa in Elephants for Lunch
• Also check out other African-related publications and websites on our Sci/Why post, "Who Wants to be a Scientist?"

Meet a Baby Ostrich by Marie Powell
Available from Lerner Group, 2015

Marie Powell is the author of more than 30 children's books, including Dragonflies are Amazing (Scholastic Canada, 2007) and Meet a Baby Ostrich (Lerner Group, 2015).