FreeLists / va-bird / [va-bird] Re: banding

["Craig Tufts" <TUFTS@xxxxxxx>]

This morning, in walking around our workplace, we found a freshly dead gc 
kinglet and also an ovenbird. Window impacts. A huge killer of birds. I would 
imagine that the number of birds killed over the course of a year in a small 
American town due to window and automobile impact is far beyond the total 
mortalities witnessed by all of the licensed banders in the US.

I would agree that while banding does stress birds and sometimes results in 
their death, the overall outcomes of this highly regulated activity are 
positive for birders and  those who perhaps may become interested in birds and 
birding and bird conservation. Birds though seemingly fragile, are stressed 
daily. Many of us who have banded have recaptured birds banded a year, two 
years, three years or more previously.  We check their band numbers or band 
them and release them apparently without undo harm.

Banding is a wonderful was to learn about birds that is an alternative to 
eyeing them with a scope or binoculars or hearing them. Becoming a bander is 
not the kind of time, knowledge, record keeping  and patience commitment all 
birders can make. Each of us can bring something to bird conservation but we 
won't all take the same path.

Craig Tufts

>>> "Cliff Otto" <ottoc.bb.etc@xxxxxxxxx> 10/2/2006 3:06:24 PM >>>
On 10/2/06, MARLENECONDON@xxxxxxx <MARLENECONDON@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
>      However, I would suggest that the effect of banding upon our
> migratory species that pass over large bodies of water be taken quite
> seriously*for we may be helping to kill off the very creatures that we are
> trying to save.
>

I suspect that man-made things like the air pollution from motor vehicles
and the global warming that has poroduced, chemical pollutants, windows, for
example, hare having  much, much greater impact on the bird population than
banding.

Cliff Otto
Alexandria

You are subscribed to VA-BIRD. To post to this mailing list, simply send email 
to va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe, send email to
va-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field.