Beauty in Numbers

This might surprise you, but not all birders are the same.

You might think that since we all get fitted out in some assortment of vests and packs and cameras and bins and guides and head out into the woods, or the fields, or the marsh, we're all the same.

Except, it turns out, we're not.  Last week, for my birthday, Kelly and I went birding at Tiny Marsh, a little more than an hour north of here. It was cold and windy, but we had a great day. Lots of turkey vultures and several redtailed hawks en route, American crows, common grackles, red-winged blackbirds, song sparrows, Canada geese (acting like geese instead of urban punks), buffleheads, ring-necked ducks, a blue-winged teal, numerous indeterminate gulls, and lesser scaups.

There were also trumpeter swans:

One pair of which we got up close and personal with:

And there was the first tree swallow of the year:

And a cheerful American tree sparrow who led us up and down one of the dikes separating the wetland cells:

Our birding friends would be happy as heck for us, but for most of them this would be a normal day, more likely a nothing day. Unlikely to be blog-worthy when you compare it to, say,  a day in South Africa or Northeast Brazil.  But Kelly got a lifer with the ring-necked duck, we practiced our raptor ID skills, and we got a tremendous demonstration of why trumpeter swans are so-named. It was a very good day for us.

Then yesterday I went for my first day volunteering at the Toronto banding station on the Leslie Spit and I realized that these folks were a completely different kind of birder than I was.  Or at least in that situation they were -- focused not on the beauty of the birds, but on their numbers: how many of each species we saw free, how many we counted on census, how many we captured and banded (or recorded if they were recaptured). And with those, a series of more numbers: the net they were found in, the amount of fat on the chest, the age, the wing length. Such a clinical approach to something I love so much.

This is a hermit thrush, one of three that we banded yesterday. He's a much-anticipated and welcome visitor to our backyard every spring and fall, and we know him so well we call him Hermie. Actually, we call all of them Hermie, and when that slipped past my lips yesterday I got a few strange looks.

I've seen banding once before and while that particular demonstration was far from an ideal experience, I understand and appreciate the value of banding, particularly if it is done gently and quickly as it is on the Spit, where teams go out to check the nets every 30 minutes, the measurements are taken as quickly as possible, and education and photo opportunities aren't given if the bander has any sense that the bird is stressed or has been held too long. Most birds in fact are released right after banding through an ingenious chute cut through the wall of the research station.

Still, I found it slightly strange that the young bander who was working that morning could be so clinical with the tiny golden-crowned kinglet, winter wren, eastern phoebe and brown creeper with its perfectly hooked bill that she held in her hand before setting them free.  Then she put her hand in one of the bird bags that another volunteer had helped bring back from the nets and pulled out a tiny perfect yellow and chestnut bird, a palm warbler.  (The first palm warbler I've ever seen, but not one I can count, given that it was captured.)















Everyone was excited about the palm warbler. Everyone talked about what a beautiful bird it was. How compact, how beautifully marked, how perfect. Then the numbers. And then the release. Nigel, the bander-in-charge,  took it outside and we followed, several of us snapping pictures as fast as we could until he moved to release it. I stepped back to watch it go and was instead stunned to be beckoned forward to take the tiny, perfect thing in my hand and release it.

"There you go, sweetheart," I whispered as it took off into the trees. And while I'm sure that more than a few people rolled their eyes as I said that, I also had the sense that they didn't disagree.