Several of you mentioned how scared you would be of crushing the bird, the lady that handled him the most had to train to do it. And you have to be very careful.
The band she puts on the hummers leg is very small.
They check the bird for fat deposits, in the Spring they look for eggs.
They also weigh and measure it. All the data collected is recorded.
Most of the time the bird is in a small black sack to prevent injuries.
Here she is putting the band on the Hummers leg.
Measuring it.
They can also tell if the Hummer is a girl or a boy, and it's age.
When you are allowed to release it you keep your palm open at all times. They carefully place the hummer in the palm of your hand and the hummer uses it as a platform to fly away.
I don't think I took a picture of how they captured them but for those of you involved in TNR it's basically the same method they had hummingbird feeders inside of cages, when the birds flew in to eat at the feeder they sprung the trap. Then the bird was guided into the bag and the bag was carried to the woman, so the man trapping them never really touched them. They actually handle them as little as possible. ~Alasandra
10 comments:
Hummingbirds are most fascinating. I would have enjoyed this tour.
Have a fabulous day. ♥
What a great thing to get to see. There is a bird banding station near us but we don't think they catch many hummers.
I attended a bird banding session, and they used a fine mess screen that caught the birds delicately. We didn't see any hummers that day, but I was enthralled by the care the people had for the birds. I guess to get the correct licenses to be a wild bird handler is extensive, and hard...the DNR really limits the amount of people/licenses.
Thanks for sharing the process of how they do each of the tasks for these hummingbirds. This was really interesting to see. Have a wonderful rest of your day.
World of Animals
This is SO cool!
That sure was neat to be part of that birding job.
Sometimes I see bands on the birds we have here, but never seen one on a hummer...of course they are very swift and don't sit still very much...but if they do, its fun to see their wee selves on the branches,
That is fascinating.
TBT can imagine grasping a hummer gently. But how do you trap one to grasp to begin with?
Amazing, just amazing but how are they caught?
Wow, that is totally amazing!
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