At World Bird Sanctuary’s annual staff/volunteer appreciation Christmas party last December, several
people were honored with awards for outstanding achievements. WBS senior staff presenting awards for
staff of the year, volunteer of the year, and junior volunteer of the year.
Many years ago Walt
Crawford, founding director of WBS, thought up a very unique award based on
that world famous, mother of all foods, that if we didn’t have it, there
wouldn’t be any birds; the egg.
What better egg to pick to put on an award plaque than the largest egg
in the world; the Ostrich egg. In
the WBS realm this biggest of eggs symbolizes quite large achievements. At the party I had the privilege of
presenting our Good Egg award to our own bird banding team.
Linda Tossing, volunteer
extraordinaire and the head of the banding team, started volunteering with WBS
16 years ago. In 2001 Linda
started helping a past WBS staff member with mist netting and banding songbirds.
Mist nets are extremely fine-fibered
nets, which can’t be seen by most birds.
The nets are set up in places where songbirds are likely to be flying
about. The birds fly into the nets
and are removed by the net checkers, banded and then released. Banding songbirds helps ornithologists
gain knowledge on their migration patterns and populations. Songbird populations are in
decline all over North America.
From the humble beginnings of one net and 2 people, Linda took it upon
herself to acquire more nets, gather old and new volunteers to help her, all on
a shoestring budget. Last year
Linda and her team banded 635 songbirds; a WBS record.
The banding team starts
their day well before dawn, because the saying, “The early bird gets the worm,”
is very true. Birds start their
foraging movements literally at the crack of dawn, then their movements lessen
as the morning progresses. Having
the nets and net checkers ready early gives them much better chances of
catching birds.
To top the early thing off,
the team does what’s called a banding blitz, where they band every morning for
3 weeks at the end of April and the beginning of May. This timeframe is the best time to catch especially
migrating Warblers, passing through eastern Missouri on their way to northern
forests for nesting. Everyone of
those days the team gathers on WBS property at 4am, since it’s light enough by
5 to start catching birds. I’m a
morning person, but even I would get tired after a few days of that!
As the summer wears on the
team bands once every 2 weeks, and takes part in a program called Monitoring
Avian Productivity Survey (MAPS).
The measurements and other information gathered from each bird trapped
are sent to a national database, and helps researchers keep track of breeding
songbirds in the U.S.
At the other end of the “keeping odd hours” spectrum, in the
autumn of 2012 the banding team started mist netting Northern Saw-whet Owls
(Aegolius acadicus). Saw-whet Owls
are a small species, just 5 inches tall from foot to head (come out and see our
resident Saw-whet Owl, Aspen, on display at our nature center).
Northern Saw-whet Owls
nest in northern forests, but not too much is known about their southern
migration routes or where they stay for the winter. These little owls only move after dark, so the banding team
starts their activities at about 6pm and ends their banding at 10pm. These dedicated volunteers band every
night for 3 weeks straight! The
banding team proved beyond a doubt that Saw-whets pass through WBS property on
their way to their wintering grounds.
The team banded 7 Saw-whets during late October and November of 2012 and
14 during the same timeframe in 2013.
To top this all off, the banding team does public mist
netting demonstrations every other week throughout the summer, to teach our
guests all about songbirds and what WBS and other organizations are doing to
help save them. If that’s not a
busy schedule, I’m a Chestnut-sided Warbler’s uncle!
World Bird Sanctuary
thanks Linda and the rest of the bird banding team for their tireless efforts
in helping save our country’s songbirds.
Please check out our website to find out when the mist netting demonstrations
will be, as well as many other WBS special events.
Submitted by Jeff Meshach,
World Bird Sanctuary Director
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