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.
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| (from the North American Banders Council passerine manual) |
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