Monday, November 15, 2010

Banding Shorebirds in Deleware

Even though the migration is done in my area for now, I found a really good video explaining the process of catching and banding shorebirds along the ocean. This video is from out east where migrant shorebirds stop to feed on mostly horseshoe crab eggs for energy on their travels. What's really cool is the scene of the canon netting on the beach and processing the birds. Someday maybe I'll get a chance to band shorebirds!


3 comments:

cindyzlogic said...

Hey Birdnerd, this was a super video! Very interesting!

Michael said...

Interesting video - appreciated the cannon net mastery of the Brits.
Isn't it spelled DelAware?

Ben Sandstrom said...

The novelty of seeing and handling shorebirds has worn off for me now that I do it for 40-50 hours a week. I wish I could pass it on to you. I did get really excited yesterday when a Reddish Egret sat under our net for a good minute, but we couldn't drop on it because there weren't any Piping Plovers under it. I also hope against hope that one of these Marbled Godwits will one day wander under with a Piping Plover. I have handled a bunch of other species on this project though. Unfortunately, I can't post any in-the-hand photos online because of the legal circumstances surrounding this project.