Looking back over 2020's Banding Season

It has been an eventful 2020. The global COVID-19 pandemic has changed all our lives and presented many challenges. Though we cancelled the spring banding season, the creation of rigorous health and safety protocols following guidelines of the Bird Banding Lab, North American Banding Council, other stations, and state/local guidelines allowed us to open this fall. Unfortunately it was the first year in the stations 29 year history that the station was closed to the public. We very much missed our community of volunteers and visitors who bring joy to every morning and look forward to the possibility of getting together in the future.

Okay, now the nitty-gritty! We captured over 1,600 birds from 35 different species; kingfishers and waterfowl which we are unable to band under our federal bird banding permit were released without being banded. We banded 1,425 birds of 32 different species, and twelve of 139 recaptures were returning birds. The oldest bird captured was a female American Three-toed Woodpecker who was at-least three years-old. Two returning Dark-eyed Juncos (Slate-colored) and one Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) were at least two years-old when we captured them again this year. We were excited to capture a handful of Pine Siskins, a Red-breasted Nuthatch, and two Belted Kingfishers! 

Our most frequent species captured:

1. Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle subspecies)

2. Orange-crowned Warbler

3. Swainson's Thrush

4. American Tree Sparrow

5. Lincoln's Sparrow

We are ever thankful for our membership and generous Adopt-a-Net Sponsors who help make this work possible. Thank you so much!

Would you like to support the Creamer's Field Migration Station? Become a member at the Alaska Songbird Institute or become a 2021 Adopt-a-Net Sponsor today!!

Fall 2020 banding comes to an end

Today was the last day of our banding season; it's always bittersweet. Most of our songbirds are gone, the leaves have changed and fallen, and the weather has turned brisk. This season's ending was different. A newer, albeit, strange new normal has emerged in our lives that we are adapting to. As the nets and equipment get tucked away, I have hope that our community can come together again in 2021. Sure, it'll be different but the joy and passion we all share will be just as strong as ever.

Stay tuned for a full summary of the season in the coming days. Who was our most frequent capture? What was the oldest bird we caught? Do you remember any rarities we caught? 

Banding Jargon Part 4: Mist Nets

 

One of our primary tools at the station is the 'mist net'. It's a specially designed trap that safely captures songbirds. It's efficacy relies on being nearly invisible to the human eye as all captures are passive, meaning that we don't use any lures or bait to attract birds into the mist nets. Today, we figured we'd share some special mist-net terminology that you may have heard us use (see if you can match the terms to the parts on the photo below!).

Guy lines: These are the ropes that anchor the poles to the ground and provide counter tension to keep the net upright and in place.

Loop: These are the thick rope circles that are attached at each end of the five trammels. The loops are used to mount the mist net onto poles.

Mesh: This is the fine micro-filament (often colored black) netting that makes up the mist net. The size of the mesh (think, a grid of squares) varies depending on what species is intended to be captured. We use a 30mm by 30mm which is typical for most songbird capture.

Pole: Each mist net is typically erected using two poles. The loops on each end of the mist net are slipped on the pole, the poles are staked in the ground and held into position with at least two guy lines. 

Shelf (or Pocket): These are the five areas of the mist net that are created by the five trammels. Some banders might refer to these loose, draping mesh as 'bags' because when there's a bird captured in it, it's like it's in a bag!

Trammel: These are the five horizontal lines that extend from pole to pole that give the solid mesh panel shape and thus create the shelves/pockets. These trammels attach to the poles using thick rope loops that allow the height of the net or spacing between the shelves/pockets to be adjusted.

(from the North American Banders Council passerine manual)

Clear skies and a Black-capped Chickadee

We caught half as many birds as yesterday, one recaptured Black-capped Chickadee. Despite the low numbers, we had a productive day preparing for the end of the season and enjoyed beautiful clear skies and nearly warm temperatures by the end of the day.

Our 32nd species of the season, a Canada Jay!

 

Though things have slowed down we were excited to capture another first-of-season, a Canada Jay! We rarely capture these tough Interior residents, but enjoy their bright and fun personalities.

Bre'r Fox Visits CFMS

There’s a great deal of valuable scientific data that can be derived from a bird banding study. However, ethics demands that banding should only be conducted in a way that doesn’t harm the birds being captured.

 
Predators pose a special problem to a banding program. Songbirds trapped in mist nets are completely defenseless and their fluttering can attract the attention of passing predators. Merlins and sharp-shinned hawks are small migratory raptors that travel through Fairbanks along with the songbirds. When we see either of these birds, all nets are closed in the vicinity until they pass through. Most people think of squirrels are vegetarians, but they will also occasionally attack a songbird in a mist net. Squirrels exhibiting predatory behavior are quickly trapped and relocated away from Creamer’s Field.
 
We’re experiencing a special problem this year with a young fox that has developed an interest in the mist nets. Foxes don’t migrate so we can’t just close nets for a few days and wait for it to move on. They’re also too big to trap and move. As a response, we’ve had to close all of the nets on the land for the rest of the season. Our capture numbers will be reduced as a result, but we’d rather lose data than harm birds!

~Laurel

Could you migrate like a songbird?

What can you do purely from instinct? Catch yourself when you’re about to trip? Chew your food? I’m sure you can think of a few things. Maybe you have a very strong ‘intuition’. But do you think it would be strong enough to get you through the following scenario?

I drop you off in the middle of the vast boreal forest. I take your smart phone and wallet and give you just enough rations to survive. You were blindfolded on the way in, so you have no idea where you are, and you’re completely on your own. Using nothing but your ‘intuition’, do you think you could get all the way to northeastern South America? Under your own power—no hitchhiking! There are only a few precious weeks of moderate weather before brutal cold sets in. How do you think you’d fare?

People often ask us if adult birds have to show babies the way to the wintering grounds. We are constantly catching flocks of birds at CFMS made up entirely of very young birds (born this year). There are no ‘leaders’ in this group, no elders who have made the journey before. Just a bunch of 2-month-old warblers and sparrows.

So... how do they do it?! These birds are equipped with a slew of instincts and sensitivities that allow them to find their way to the wintering grounds completely on their own. I imagine it would feel like following an intuition. They have the ability to ‘see’ Earth’s magnetic field because of magnetite in their brains—so they can tell north from south. They also register changes in the photoperiod (the amount of light in a day) in order to know how to time their migration. Songbirds can see polarized light, and some birds use the sun and stars to navigate. They may eventually learn landmarks—but they probably don’t know them on their very first migration. They also have to know to fuel up before their journey, and somehow most of them know to make their big flights at night. There may be a social element to this, as most of these birds are traveling in groups, but it isn’t the case that some birds must already know the way. The process is largely innate, instinctual. No one even teaches the birds how make sense of the instincts. They just know!

Of course this isn’t true for ALL birds—Whooping Cranes are famous for following a fake Whooping Crane in order to learn their migration route. Basically, it seems every species has their own little tricks for getting from one place to another—the task of crossing the globe twice a year is enormous and complicated. There is no quick answer! And it’s definitely not fully understood yet.

Many birds are so good at the process that they can fly all the way from Alaska to South America and back to Alaska—and wind up in exactly the same breeding territory they used the previous year. That is a lot of information to process and remember... And they don’t even get to take notes!

If you’re interested in learning more about the magic of avian migration, I recommend the book Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere with Migratory Birds by Scott Weidensaul. And if you’re interested in the process of emergence (social intelligence without coordinated leaders), there’s a classic Radiolab episode about that.

PS—I promise I won’t leave you stranded in the boreal forest. ...without your smartphone. ;)

~Laura

P.S.S. We closed early today due to high wind and rain.