After learning to band birds in Long Point Bird Observatory’s exciting young ornithologists workshop, I was eager to participate in more banding. One of my friends whom I met at Long Point introduced me to the observatory he volunteered at—Haldimand Bird Observatory. Over the course of the fall, I visited HBO nearly every Saturday to help out with bird banding and migration monitoring. I was proud to be able to improve not only my bird handling skills but also my bird identification.
Pictured: an eastern phoebe, one of my favorite birds to band.
Pictured: a downy woodpecker and its attempted murder of my hand. Sometimes, sacrifices must be made in the name of science.
Pictured: a myrtle/yellow-rumped warbler, one of the many we caught that day (top left).
Little miss bluebird, who was very angry about being caught, and was very vocal about it (top right).
A yellow-billed cuckoo and it stunning orange flight feathers (bottom).
Pictured: my favorite sparrow, the fox sparrow! I was so excited when I pulled this one out of the bag.
Below are a few links to HBO’s blog posts.
https://www.haldimandbirdobservatory.com/september-29th-busy-weekend/
https://www.haldimandbirdobservatory.com/october-6th-an-up-down-weekend/
https://www.haldimandbirdobservatory.com/october-14th-thanksgiving-weekend/
https://www.haldimandbirdobservatory.com/october-19th-a-busy-week/
https://www.haldimandbirdobservatory.com/november-4th-topsy-turvy-start-to-november/
https://www.haldimandbirdobservatory.com/november-10th-finish-with-a-flourish/