Songbirds & Parasites : Coyote Creek Banding Station

Before beginning graduate school in August 2013, I hadn't had much experience handling birds. I took an ornithology class as an undergraduate where I got some exposure to mist nets and saw a few birds up close but hadn't actually handled any.

I had to build up this experience pretty quickly as it's required when applying for permits. Luckily, my lab mate, Allison, introduced me to the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory and their banding station at Coyote Creek. The banding station is run by Josh Scullen, a certified master bander by the USGS (a huge deal - according to the USGS there are only 2,000 master banders in the US.)

Other than Josh, the station is entirely volunteer run. Each Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday 3-6 volunteers show up at dawn and work for 5 hours, conducting net runs every 30 minutes. Net runs involve walking the length of the 15 or so nets and extracting (taking out of the net) any birds that are caught. Birds then go back to the banding trailer where they await their turn to be processed (measured, weighed, aged, etc.)

The clips designate which net the bird was caught in. Bags get a red clip if the bird is small or a species that tends to stress easily, such as a warbler or flycatcher.

This is Jazzy, excited in the early morning hours to be processing a pacific-slope flycatcher.

It is here that I've been able to get weekly practice extracting birds from nets, handling them, and taking the necessary measurements. The station is in Milpitas, north of San Jose and about a 45 minute drive from my house.

I usually go down on Sundays and since I went today I took a bunch of bird photos with this blog in mind. You can click on each species name to read more about them at Cornell's All About Birds website.