Written By: Andrew Connolly As the sun began to creep above the horizon, I watched its rays glisten across the calm waves while we navigated across Lake Erie to a small island a few miles from the Canadian border. We rose pre-dawn to eat and load our gear onto the M/V BioLab, the oldest active research vessel on Lake Erie, before setting off from our private research island towards the next island over, Middle Bass Island. My role: Biological Field Station Assistant. What this means: deck hand, research assistant, and any other task that is needed. We slid across the gentle waves as inch by inch the sun rose and illuminated the world around us, miles of open water dotted by boats and islands. We docked in the harbor where we were met by a pickup truck and then loaded our gear, and people into it. I climbed into the bed of the truck with our gear as we moved down the dirt roads past quiet fields and ponds, with birds just waking. With the sun rapidly climbing, we unloaded and hauled our gear down the trails to our site, before setting out for the task at hand: Bird Banding. Bird Banding is the research process of catching and releasing targeted bird species after outfitting them with small bands around their legs to track their movements. This allows researchers to study bird migration, movement, and spatial ecology, an important step in conservation work.
We started by setting our mist nets up along the woods line, with the hopes of catching birds flitting in the shadows. Speed was of the essence, as the warming air and rising sun would soon send the birds to the ground to rest during the middle of the summer heat. Once set, we rotated every 30 minutes in teams to check every net, extracting every bird and then banding those that we could. With a gentle hold, we would determine their sex, weigh them, measure them, and then place band(s) on their legs, before releasing them to the world. Some would race away into the bushes, others would give an indignant push and launch themselves upwards, and a select few would take the moment to sit in our hand, collect themselves, and then slowly flit away to a tree. After hours of sampling we heard, saw or banded the following (incomplete list) of species: Canadian Geese, Mourning Doves, Yellow-billed Cuckoos, Spotted Sandpipers, Double-crested Cormorants, Great Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Red-Bellied Woodpeckers, Northern Flickers, Eastern Kingbirds, Tree Swallows, Barn Swallows, House Wrens, American Robins, Baltimore Orioles, Red-winged Blackbirds, Common Grackles, Yellow Warblers and many more. Close to the Canadian border, on an island in Lake Erie, there lies a series of islands that call out to the world, islands full of life and biodiversity, of magic and adventure, and of birds finding refuge when migrating across Lake Erie. You too can contribute to research efforts to protect the amazing birds that call our planet home. The annual Great Backyard Bird Count is being held this February 16th -19th. To participate, spend a minimum of 15 minutes bird watching and identifying the birds, then upload the data to eBird, or use Merlin Bird ID to start learning the calls! If you need a place to watch birds, come visit us at the zoo and walk around our beautiful sensory gardens. Check out https://www.birdcount.org/participate/ for more information on how to get involved with the Great Backyard Bird Count.
1 Comment
Kathie Sabia
2/16/2024 01:30:16 pm
Wonderful article about amazing and important work in the field! What a great opportunity for hands on conservation..The GBBC this weekend is marking it's 26th year of citizen science and since 2013, it has gone global with people all over the world observing and reporting birds during the great migration. Last year, over half a million people from 22 countries participated. What a great way to become a small part of something so big. Thank you, Andrew, for telling your story.
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