Note: All banding is conducted by trained personnel under a federally authorized Bird Banding Permit issued by the U.S. Geological Survey's Bird Banding Lab.
Every year, the Urban Ecology Center hosts a weeklong summer camp all about birds — called I Spy Birds.
One activity young campers learn about is bird banding. It’s a way scientists track bird behavior by safely catching, tagging and measuring birds.
It’s what we set out to do on a dewy, gray morning at Riverside Park, as I follow a team of scientists setting up a 12-foot-tall mesh net, called a mist net.
The nets are barely visible, blending in with the trees. Master bird bander Al Sherkow says they’re meant to be like that — birds don’t see the net and fly right into it.
“This is a lot like fishing,” Sherkow says. “We put the nets where we think the birds are going to be, and we’ve had good luck at this spot."
Once a bird is caught in the net, researchers will safely remove it, jot down its measurements and clamp a small bracelet with a unique ID number to the bird's ankle.
The identification number helps scientists study a bird's migration pattern, its survival rate and whether it's breeding.
Brittany Peters, a development systems manager with the Urban Ecology Center, is helping set up a bird banding station with all the tools a researcher needs to collect this data.
She says breeding bird surveys, like this one, take place in the summer. Meanwhile, migration surveys happen in the fall and spring.
“We capture everything we can, so the easier things are the length of the wing and the weight,” Peters says. “All of that data is super valuable, it tells us where birds are going, where they stop, what habitat they need when they stop there — all of that we can tell by looking at many birds, so it’s pretty awesome.”
She says for many people, seeing a bird up close for the first time can be a transformative experience.
“Birds are such a fun and accessible way for kids to learn about the natural world,” Peters says. “We can let them release the bird safely, and that is something that most kids never forget. Especially kids that grow up in the city — we have some kiddos who have never seen Lake Michigan who live in the city, believe it or not.”
I’m about to find out just how meaningful bird banding can be for kids, as a group of third and fourth grade campers begin to arrive at the riverbank.
UEC Environmental Educator Tory Bahe introduces the students to Tim Vargo, the organization’s director of research, a master bird bander and the leader of today’s bird banding project.
“Today is a beautiful day," Vargo says. ”It’s not too windy, it’s not rainy, it’s not too hot, it’s not too cold… and so we’re lucky, all we need now is for birds to fly into the nets.”
Bahe and Vargo explain to young campers how bird banding helps researchers monitor the health of bird populations. One group stays behind with Bahe to learn more about bird-banding skills while another group ventures out with Vargo to check on the mist nets for birds.
On one of the trips to visit a net, the moment everyone’s been waiting for … happens!
“We caught a bird! I really want to see it!” a nine-year-old camper named Rose yells out in glee. As the excitement builds, she lets her mind wander and imagines all the possible birds in the net.
“I'm hoping for at least a Robin because I see Robins here a lot, so I'm guessing it's gonna be Robin,” Rose says. “I'm hoping for maybe, like, a Red-winged blackbird. But I don't really think that's gonna happen. If we caught, like, a Woodpecker, that would be super cool.”
As we approach the mist net, UEC’s field data manager, Amanda Tokuyama, reminds students to keep their voices down as community scientist Brittany Peters carefully untangles the bird.
“Brittany is still working on getting the bird out, so she needs to concentrate so we're all gonna be quiet to not stress Brittany and not stress the bird," Tokuyama says.
After Peters gently puts the bird in a small cotton bag, which sort of looks like a pillowcase, we head back to the bird banding station for an up-close observation.
It’s a soft grey bird, with a black cap on its head and rusty-colored feathers under its tail. The campers make giddy guesses ranging from a Rusty blackbird to an Eastern phoebe.
“It’s a Gray catbird,” Tokuyama says, as she holds the bird in what’s called a bander's grip, its head secured between her middle and index fingers.
Peters then clamps a tiny bracelet with a unique ID number around the bird’s ankle and records measurements and observations she and Tokuyama make about the bird.
The information they gather will be sent to the U.S. Geological Survey, so if the bird is caught again, its ID number will connect it to all the other data the scientists are gathering about the bird’s health.
“This bird has a brood patch, what does that tell us?” Peters asks the campers.
“It might be a female!” the campers respond.
After the team jots down all of this health data, it’s time to let the bird fly free.
The students huddle in a circle, pile their hands together and brainstorm names for the bird.
“Bye, bye, fluffy!”
“Her name should be Gertrude!”
“I’m gonna name her Angela!”
Tokuyama gently places the Gray catbird on top of their hands and it flutters away.
“Bye Angela!”
Before nine-year-old Rose ran off to check out the next mist net, I asked her what she thought about this bird banding experience.
“It was super fun, and I just loved learning about the bird,” Rose says. “It wasn’t boring information — it was interesting! It’s not like your teacher reading a book at school, like, 'Blah, blah, blah.' Like, I had an actual opportunity to truly learn about a bird.”
Now that Rose and her friends have seen a bird up close — and even named it — they can’t wait to learn more.
“I love bird banding, because it’s so much fun to see all the birds up close,” an eight-year-old camper named Cece says. “But since we’re just eight or nine, we’re probably going to get a lot of other chances to do this again.”
