In the Palm of My Hand

The first day of the New River Birding and Nature Festival included a banding demonstration. Our friend Murr has already written about it (using the very same, very original title I had been planning to use BTW), and while I am tempted to simply link to her blog and say "ditto," she's already indicated that I'm not going to get away with that.

There are about 900 licensed banders in Canada, and I think around 1500 in the United States. Over the past few years as I've been following birding blogs, I've seen lots of evidence of banding and I initially wondered what the point was. One blogger in particular seemed to be in dogged pursuit of banding events in which they could participate, without any kind of explanation why. (I think they assumed that the audience had more knowledge than I at least did.) I couldn't quite understand the pull. Was it the thrill of holding the bird in your hand? Was it the chance to connect as you looked close into a bird's eye, and it looked back at you? Because I get that.

Yet the birds seemed none too happy in many of the pictures and videos I saw posted. In fact, one video of a pileated woodpecker being banded was so upsetting --the bird was in horrible distress, very vocal, and understandably lashing out at the bander-- that I shut it off and wrote a friend asking why on earth anyone who loved birds would want to do this.

This is a Pileated Woodpecker, photographed at a batch of deer fat hanging outside my friend Teri-Lynn's kitchen in Sioux Lookout.

Can you imagine holding that captive and trying to clamp a band around its leg? But wait ... I'm getting a little emotional. Back to the facts.

My friend, who understood and shared my discomfort, replied that banding is used to collect valuable scientific data. (That being said, she doesn't band.) According to the Canadian Wildlife Service, banding is a regulated practice in which wild birds are captured, examined, and marked on the leg with a metal band. This is done of all kinds of birds, from hummingbirds to hawks, and provides the scientific and naturalist communities with valuable information about the health and migration patterns of wild birds. So that's pretty important in a world where we seem intent on destroying bird habitat to extract oil, gas, and coal (viz. Gulf of Mexico, Appalachian mountain top removal, and digging up the boreal forest in Northern Alberta), not to mention building skyscrapers (lit ablaze at night) in the migratory path, or letting millions of cats prowl around doin' what comes naturally to them but has a completely unnatural effect on bird populations.

Wait ... I'm getting a little emotional again.

All of this was in my mind as I, along with other birders, was invited to watch the banding demonstration. The first bird in hand this morning was a blue jay, who had been caught in a simple feeder trap --he entered the feeder to eat, a door closed behind him. I expected that the bander would explain all his technology to us, tell us what we would be seeing, then take the bird out, band it, and let it go. Then we could have a discussion about the intricacies of banding.


This is the banding. Before you begin, the band is prepped and number recorded. The bird is then examined for things like gender, age, breeding status, health. This is quickly noted, and the band is clipped onto the leg in a matter of seconds. I'm not sure how long the whole process "in hand" should take -- couple minutes maybe?

It didn't quite work that way.

This bird was held in hand for 30 minutes or more, and became an educational prop. Belly blown on to reveal gender and breeding status (state of cloacal protuberance, condition of skin on belly). Wings splayed. Beak opened. Tail spread. As I said to the bander later, I learned an awful lot.

But I was uncomfortable. Several of us asked, several times, about the stress on the bird. We were told that they don't feel stress the same way we do. Hmmm. What about the recorded cases of robins actually dying in hand during banding? "This is science. We can't get emotionally involved."

But the fact is, we bird because we are emotionally involved. We bird because something beautiful caught our eye and captured our imagination over that cup of coffee in Sioux Lookout. Because a boat guide off Bay Bulls told us how he once freed a gannet that had got caught in a stray net, and he stared deep into that gannet's eyes and saw something profound. We bird because we know that every year just as the juncoes flee, the thrushes will come back to the garden, then the white throats and the white-crowneds, and that each year something new will come. (This year it's rose-breasted grosbeaks.)

We bird because we are emotionally connected to these ancient, beautiful beings. We are drawn to them. I can't deny that when offered the chance to hold the blue jay and --finally-- to let him go, I was thrilled ... and terrified.


He was amazingly soft and light. Amazingly alert after his ordeal/our experience.


I whispered my thanks and apologies to him (emotionally involved!) and told him he'd be free in a second. Then I turned over my hand, opened it, and he flew as far away from us as he could get, squalling all the time.


That should have been the end of it, no? No. We continued birding around the Meadows at Opossum Creek, had an amazing lunch from Wendy, and then found out that a hummingbird had been caught in the mist net-- a fine nylon net which captures birds without, apparently, hurting them. I confess that I couldn't stop myself from seeing this up close. I felt sure that the process would be much quicker for this smaller, more delicate bird.


WRONG!! This guy was put in a cardboard tube for weighing.


Liz, who's quite handy with all things natural, took a closer look. Is that emotion I see in her face? It's certainly amazement ... wonder ... awe.


The wee little thing was given a couple good doses of food, and rested in Liz's hand for quite a bit longer than I would have thought -- tired, perhaps, or stressed.


And then, in an instant, was gone.


I think banding is a valuable and necessary tool if we want to gather information to help us keep birds a healthy part of our ecosystem. I think that's what drives so many banders, like Vickie and Debbie, who also have an emotional appreciation of what they hold in their hand. I think educational opportunities with birds --especially for people who've never experienced anything other than a house sparrow or a starling-- is crucial. And it's amazing when education can be done not with birds who've been, at our whim, pulled from their natural habitat but with those who have been injured and are in the trusted care of humans, as in the work that Susan does, or Phoebe's and Julie's current mourning dove rehab. Here I am holding the mourning dove, whom they're feeding every 20 minutes and teaching how to fly:


Holding a wild bird in my hand filled me with awe and gratefulness. I can still feel both birds' warmth and the loft of their feathers; in my mind, I rub my fingertips lightly on the mourning dove's bumpy little wing bones. But the two experiences were very different.

I am left with mixed feelings about my participation in the banding demo. I can't deny that I felt the pull to hold that blue jay in my hand, even after he had been held way too long. I feel confident that while I held him, I treated him well. But I also participated in an event that kept birds captive for human education and entertainment (and just what was the balance between the two?) in a way that I feel was not fair to them.

How will I work that out the next time?