Bird Banding

What a fantastic experience!  I spent the morning at a home in Alachua, Florida, watching bird banders at work.  Patrick Brady (left) and Jennifer Grindle are working with the Smithsonian Institute on a project that will track how long specific feeder birds continue to return to the same yard.  The target birds are Northern Cardinals, Carolina Wrens, and Carolina Chickadees.  Patrick and Jennifer set up the nets at 6:00 this morning, and we had two Cardinals almost immediately.  Eventually they caught, banded and released five Cardinals and two Wrens.   Chickadees seemed to surround us at times, but they avoided the nets rather easily.  Each target bird was weighed, checked for body fat, banded, and released (after several of us had the chance to hold them!).  Also captured were two Tufted Titmice and a very loud Red-bellied Woodpecker.  It’s hard to see, but the Wren I’m holding (top right) was very docile and seemed genuinely curious about what we wanted and why we were disturbing his morning.