Great Story for AFNHA Birds
By Samantha Grimes
Serving with Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge
As an AmeriCorps member serving with Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge, I have had the opportunity to participate in bird banding. Bird banding is the scientific process of collecting live birds, marking them with a small metal band on their leg, gathering measurements and information on each bird, then releasing them. When the birds are captured again, either at the same station or somewhere else, we learn about their survivorship and migration patterns.
Juvenile northern saw-whet owl
The main species I have worked with is the northern saw-whet owl (Aegolius acadicus). In the fall, there is a nationwide program called Project Owlnet that gathers information about the migration of these owls. I helped at the station on the refuge. For this survey, we set up mist nets, which look like giant volleyball nets with pockets, with a lure of the breeding owl’s call. Once we get the owls back to the banding station, we measure the natural wing cord, or length while folded, flattened wing cord, tail length, bill length, and weight. We can use the weight and wing cord to determine the sex of the bird. The age of the bird can be determined by the feathers on the wing because new feathers will glow under a UV light. This past fall, we captured 85 saw-whets.
I also had the opportunity to help with nest box checks for the saw-whets. This involved checking nest boxes that were placed along forest roads at 0-meters, 25-meters, and 50-meters. Most of the nest boxes were empty, but I did get to see 2 juvenile saw-whets that were able to be banded on Canaan Loop Road.
Female scarlet tanager
Last fall, I was able to help with net tending at Allegheny Front Migration Observatory. This is a bird banding station at Dolly Sods near the Red Creek campground. There are about twenty 12-meter nets set up with the banding station in the middle where we can see all the nets. Because of the way the nets are set up in relation to the vegetation and mountains, the right wind can funnel the birds into the nets. There were days at this station where we would get hundreds of birds that were migrating. One of the coolest birds I was able to handle was the yellow billed cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus).
This summer, I helped with two Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship (MAPS) stations. One MAPS station is at Pleasant Creek Wildlife Management Area (PCWMA), and the other is at Old Hemlock Bird Observatory (OHBO). Both stations have ten mist nets set up without any active calling. I was able to band some of the birds at these MAPS stations. At PCWMA, the coolest birds banded were orchard orioles (Icterus spurius) and scarlet tanagers (Piranga Olivacea). The coolest bird banded at OHBO were red bellied woodpeckers (Melanerpes carolinus) and chestnut-sided warblers (Setophaga pensylvanica). I also was able to take a bird banding class online for passerines (song birds) and near passerines through the Department of the Interior. This course gave me a lot of good information on how and why we band birds along with the history of the process. I also have been working with a few master banders and have learned a lot from their expertise. I hope to be able to continue bird banding in the future and get a sub-bander permit at some point.
All birds are captured and banded under a federal permit issued by the bird banding lab, part of the US Geological Survey.
Photos of adult northern saw-whet owl, Juvenile northern saw-whet owl, and female scarlet tanager. Photos by LeJay Graffious and Samantha Grimes/ AmeriCorps
