by Cathy Blumig

When you plan a learning activity that depends on having wildlife in-hand as a central part of the experience, you have to include caveats to all involved that things might not work out. That was the case for NJ OWL’s Upland Birding and Mist Netting activity on April 12, 2004.

The focus of the event was songbirds - how to identify them, how to identify what habitats are attractive to which species, and learning a little bit about migration. The highlight of the day would be for us to actually capture birds in mist nets, fit them with legbands and learn how legbanding is used in wildlife research. Or that was the hope. My specific caveat for this event was that there was no guarantee that we would catch any birds, and so by necessity might have to bypass the hands-on learning associated with handling birds.

Although I organized things, the head honcho was Dr. James Applegate, a recently retired wildlife professor from the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources at Cook College - Rutgers. In addition to his thirty-plus years of teaching wildlife ecology and management courses at the university, and also reviewing scientific papers concerning wildlife, Dr. Applegate is licensed by the US Fish & Wildlife Service to band birds.

Dr. Applegate has a very engaging teaching style, and through hands-on involvement he would guide us through a process that would lead to a better understanding of birds, birding and wildlife research. We’d meet at his family-owned Christmas tree farm in Cranbury, which was the venue for NJ OWL’s first Upland Birding and Mist Netting activity held in 2001.

The game plan was this: we’d unfurl the mist nets, then wander around the farm for about an hour learning how to identify different bird species by sight and sound. Then we’d come back to see if we had caught anything. But wildlife being wildlife (i.e. unpredictable), things didn’t quite go as planned, albeit in a pleasant way.

First stop: the mist nets. Five nets, each strung between two metal poles and bunched up with strings, were placed at various points around the yard. Dr. Applegate untied the strings and gently unfurled the nets so that a passing bird would become entangled.

"Mist" seemed the perfect word to describe these contraptions. The net material is remarkably fine and difficult to see, especially when placed near vegetation. Dr. Applegate warned everyone not to get too close to the nets as it takes very little for them to become tangled on clothing.

As Dr. Applegate worked on the nets he pointed out some of the bird songs that permeated the air, in particular that of the white-throated sparrow. Describing bird songs in print is hard to do, but for anyone who was there, the cadence associated with the white throated’s song, "Old Sam Peabody Peabody Peabody," will be hard to forget. As it turned out, white-throated sparrows would be the most memorable bird of the day.

As the last net was unfurled, we stopped to admire the cabin-like arrangement of Dr. Applegate’s shiitake logs, and discussed the cultivation of these delicious mushrooms. Then a member who was just arriving announced that there were lots of birds in the nets that she passed on the way over to the group. We went to the first net that had been set up and saw that twelve birds had been caught.

Dr. Applegate carefully removed the first bird from the net, a white-throated sparrow. He recruited one member to record data about the captured bird (date of capture, species and the number stamped on the legband, and if we could have determined it – but we couldn’t in this case - the sex of the bird).

Each number stamped on the legband is unique to that band and accordingly to that individual bird (like a social security number for birds). The bands come in different sizes, and are matched to the species of bird for a proper fit. Special pliers are used to apply the band to the bird’s leg. Dr. Applegate gives the information to the US Fish & Wildlife Service, the federal agency that maintains the database. A close look at a legband reveals that it contains not only the band number, but an address to send the legband, or the number if the bird is recovered alive. Returned bands have yielded information about how long birds live, how far they can travel, and where they go.

While all this was going on, Dr. Applegate asked questions of participants concerning the physical features of the bird and what those features indicated about how the bird lived. He pointed out the field marks that allow one to identify a white-throated sparrow as being a white-throated sparrow: the white throat patch and yellow lores (yellow spots where the eyes meet the bid’s bill). While some members had held wild birds before (when NJ OWL participated in shorebird banding for example), most had not. Many made comments about how amazingly light the birds were, and how amazing it was to think of such small creatures being able to fly the great distances that they do.

White-throated sparrows, explained Dr. Applegate, would start to leave in about three weeks or so, and head for points North to nest.

Other species were caught, too: dark-eyed juncos, song sparrows and one American robin. In all, 25 birds were captured. Everyone had the opportunity to examine a bird first-hand. Occasionally one would escape before it could be fitted with a legband. At other times birds that were intentionally released accidentally flew back into the net. Members learned to move a distance from the net to reduce the chances of immediate "recaptures."

The down side to catching so many birds was that Dr. Applegate had to attend a dinner and didn’t have time to take us field birding. As a result, members were stuck with me as leader. Luckily, NJ OWL members Linda Turi and Barbara Brookman were along, and used their strong birding skills to help with identification.