Band(ing) of Birds - part 2a

Yes, I'm getting a little ridiculous in naming this "part 2a". But this is a much smaller post and it is related to my previous post about the behind-the-scenes look at our trip to photograph the activities of the bird banding program at the Manomet Center for Conservation Studies. I mentioned their catching birds in mist nest but didn't show much about that.

These mist nets (there is a good article about mist nets in Wikipedia) are strung along paths in the forest. They are very delicate and almost invisible under many conditions. I lost count of how many we passed on our hike to collect birds but it seemed like the total length we passed must have been hundreds of feet These must be inspected every hour so the birds don't lie in them for too long. They are vulnerable to other birds and animals and, if left too long, could injure themselves trying to get loose. The nets are removed on rainy days and at night. That must take a long time as well as putting them up again.

The picture here shows the mist nets a little better in that you can see how it runs along the path. This is just one section of the many we passed on our walk. The young staff worker is specially trained to disentangle the bird without injuring it. The bird flies into the upper part of the net and then just falls into the lower part with is turned up to make a pouch. It's like a trapeze artist falling into a net. You can see that the staffer is holding something in her mouth as she works. That's the identification button for this particular net and she attached it to the bag that holds the bird. As soon as she put a bird in its individual bag, it quieted right down. Just as when you put a cover over a bird cage at night, this caused the bird to think it was time for sleep.

That's it for posts about the Manomet Center. I hope you've enjoyed them and learned a little. I sure did.