The bird that Jim placed in my hand barely felt like anything against my skin. The black-and-white-striped feathers were soft, their temperature similar to my own. We’d just recorded the weight of this little beauty at 10 grams, or about as much as two teaspoons of sugar. I marveled at their racing heartbeat—more like a vibration than a pulse I could count.
With the black-and-white warbler’s fragile neck cradled between the first two fingers of my left hand, I tipped him down in a pose that most birds find hypnotic. His legs’ wiry strength pressed into the soft pads of my thumb and forefinger. The metal band with a unique number that Jim had just applied to the bird’s left leg glinted in the morning sun.
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| Master Bird Bander Jim Bryce holds a black-and-white warbler captured in a mist net in the Moquah Barrens. Photo by Emily Stone. |
I felt gratitude for this bird’s brief connection to my life and their permanent contribution to research. Then I loosened my grip. Tiny toes pricked my finger as he clung upside down for a second before darting into the brush. I chuckled at the way, even while captive, this black-and-white warbler lived up to their reputation as a nuthatch mimic who is usually seen creeping nimbly along branches on the hunt for insects in the bark.
I’ve been watching Jim Bryce, a Master Bird Bander with a lifetime of experience, band birds on this hilltop in the Moquah Barrens in northern Bayfield County, Wis. for 13 years. Each year I revel in Jim’s steady stream of quiet words explaining the banding process and sharing his vast experience with bird banding over several decades and several government agencies. Usually, I lead a group of 20 Wisconsin Master Naturalist students on a hike up the overgrown footpath from the sandy forest road. We burst into a small clearing to find Jim already set up with his ancient folding table, folding chair, and banding supplies ready to begin teaching the moment anyone is close enough to listen.
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| Jim at his banding table during the 2016 Wisconsin Master Naturalist volunteer training. You can see the fringe of red pines in the distance. The site has been burned just that spring. Photo by Emily Stone. |
This year was different. Rain kept us from banding with the students earlier in the week. But Jim still needed to conduct the banding as part a long-term research project studying how bird diversity changes in response to prescribed burning in this pine savannah. (Read about what we found in 2020.)
Catching the black-and-white warbler was a bit of a surprise. They are lovers of forests, but the lone pine tree on this hill died in the last prescribed burn—seven years ago. Now only a fringe of red pine trees looms in the distance as breezes rustle leaves in an aspen grove across the road. Bad luck with fire weather has prevented burning on the planned three-to-five-year schedule, and not-so-scrubby oaks whacked our faces and waved above our heads as Jim and I visited each of the three mist nets we set up in order to gently entangle the local songbirds.
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| The 12-meter mist net is visible down the center of the group as Jim extracts a bird in 2016. Photo by Emily Stone. |
Our first net check of the morning had yielded this black-and-white warbler, a beautiful male chestnut-sided warbler, a feisty female rose-breasted grosbeak, and a veery. Veeries are small, brown thrushes also described as forest birds, but their flute-like, downward spiraling song has been a consistent part of our Barrens soundtrack anyway. Jim let me weigh each of the first three birds inside their mesh collection bags and then observe his banding technique. By the time we got to the veery, he insisted it was my turn.
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| Veeries are small, brown thrushes whose flute-like, downward spiraling song is often heard in damp forests of the Northwoods. Photo by Emily Stone. |
My heart raced as I reached my hand into the bag. What if I broke them? What if I let them escape? Then my fingers found a familiar grip, and before I knew it, I was holding this bird just like I had the warbler. Now that I was the bander and not just the releaser, the vibration of their heart felt different. Their safety was in my hands. My own heart slowed, and I took a steadying breath.
We’d already recorded the band number, date, time, location, numerical species code, and weight of the bird-plus-the-bag in Jim’s well-worn notebook. As I held the veery in my left hand, I used my right hand to spread open the tiny, officially issued aluminum band using the split peg on Jim’s banding pliers. Maneuvering the veery so that I could grip their right leg in my left thumb and forefinger, I slipped the open band over their leg. I wielded the power of the pliers as gently as I could to squeeze the band closed, the edges meeting smoothly and the whole thing sliding freely between their foot and “knee.” Now even if the bird escaped, they were ready to contribute to science!
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| I was too focused on banding the veery to take photos, but later we caught this white-throated sparrow and I was able to band him, too. The banding notebook and supplies can be seen in the background. Photo by Emily Stone. |
Male and female veeries look very similar, so to determine the bird’s sex, I blew on their stomach to part the feathers. In female birds, this reveals a featherless area called a brood patch where bare skin conducts heat directly to her eggs. Instead, I found a small knob known as a cloacal protuberance. This organ swells during breeding season and assists a male with fertilizing the female during a brief act called a “cloacal kiss.”
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| Jim blows on the belly of a male chestnut-sided warbler revealing the cloacal protuberance. Photo by Emily Stone. |
Up higher, my breath revealed red skin around their bird’s wishbone, indicating a complete lack of subcutaneous fat. Breeding birds have no time to gain weight! Their body size is more stable, though, so I also measured from the tip of the longest feather to the bend in the wing. All of these data are useful in tracking changes in bird populations over time, but the holy grails of bird banding are returns. Re-catching a previously banded bird is rare in the banding world, but returns provide a wealth of information. (Read about the return we have in 2015!)
From these recaptured birds, scientists have learned about the incredible 24,000 mile round-trip migration that Arctic terns complete each year; the wintering habitat of Bicknell’s thrushes; and the maximum known age for a wild bald eagle (at least 38 years). However, only about 1% of small birds are ever caught again. If someone recaptures this veery, the USGS will notify Jim, and he will tell me.
“This bird will be forever connected to you,” Jim reminded me after we’d sent the veery flying back into the brush. My heart fluttered happily.
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| The veery and me--my first ever banded bird! |
