Bird bands tell stories to science, hunters
Every wild bird is a feathered enigma, its individual mystery contributing much to their kind’s communal magic.
Any wildfowler holding a taken bird — a duck, goose, mourning dove or other game bird whose kind comes and goes with the seasons, annually appearing as if by spontaneous generation and evaporating by some equal alchemy — lives a shallow existence if they haven’t wondered at the riddle in their hands.
Where did you come from and where were you going? What places have you seen? Howlong have you traveled the skies, and why?
This past year, about 1,500 of the more than 7 million or so migratory game birds taken by Texas hunters answered some of those questions, their tales told through hunters reporting the number on a small metal band wrapped around the bird’s lower leg
These bands, most of them aluminum but some stainless steel or other durable metal and each etched with a unique number, are part of a nearly century-old North American bird-banding program that has illuminated many of the mysteries of migratory wildfowl, providing answers to questions that eluded science for centuries, building a reservoir of knowledge used to guide decisions on managing wildlife resources whose range and seasonal movements can span continents and oceans. Records date to 1920s
Each year across North America, about 1.2 million wild birds are captured, fit with uniquely numbered bands and released, with detailed information about the bird — species, age, sex, date and location of its capture — recorded by approximately 6,500 holders of federal banding permits. That information is entered into the database of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Bird Banding Laboratory in Maryland as part of the North American Bird Banding Program. That program, jointly administered by the USGS and the Canadian Wildlife Service, uses the same standardized protocols developed when the program began in the 1920s.
“Wehave bird-banding records going back to the 1920s,” said Bruce Peterjohn, chief of the Bird Banding Lab. “Our database has 70 million banding records from 1960 through today, and 5 million reported encounters over that period.”
Reports of those “encounters” are what has allowed scientists to fill many blanks about bird movements, behavior, migration routes, life spans, survival rates, population dynamics and other insights. Information generated by reporting of banded birds — most often by hunters who took banded migratory game birds but also by people recapturing banded birds, using spotting scopes to read band numbers or band numbers from birds found dead — is responsible for the discovery in the 1930s of the four distinct “flyways” used by most waterfowl and most other migratory birds in their annual, seasonal north/south movements. That discovery led to wildlife managers developing management regimes, including hunting regulations, customized to fit the birds found in each flyway.
“Information bird bands have provided and continues providing is crucial to our understanding of birds, and the data from band returns are a big factor when making management decisions regarding migratory game birds,” said Shaun Oldenburger, a migratory-bird program leader in Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s wildlife division and coordinator of the agency’s bird banding projects. “Without our survey work and band data, we would not have been able to expand hunting seasons and hunting opportunities like we have in recent years.”
While bands are placed on more than 300 species of birds, most of them (about 70 percent) non-game birds, the majority of the 90,000-100,000 or so reports the Bird Banding Lab has received over recent years concern banded migratory game birds — waterfowl and doves, mostly, but also other game birds such as woodcock, sandhill cranes and snipe.
“About 75 to 80 percent of the band encounters reported are game birds,” Peterjohn said.
In 2015, the Bird Banding Lab received a little more than 1,500 reports of banded migratory game birds taken in Texas, Oldenburger said.
White-winged doves, which have been a focus of increased banding efforts in the state over the past two decades as wildlife managers look to learn more about the dramatic expansion in the range and population of these tropical doves, accounted for the highest number of band reports, he said. Anaverage of about 5,000 whitewings have been banded each of the last several years, with 323 of those birds being reported to the Bird Banding Lab in 2015.
Mourning doves, which also are the focus of considerable banding effort in Texas and other states, also were one of the most-reported banded birds in Texas in 2015, with hunters filing 127 encounters with Texas’ top game bird.
Blue-winged teal, a duck that has seen its population boom over the past two decades, were the most commonly reported banded waterfowl encountered by Texans in 2015, with 206 reported.
During recent years, the days with the largest number of bands reported to the Bird Banding Lab have occurred during the September teal-only season and the first few days of dove season, Oldenburger said.
Other top reported banded birds in Texas included mottled ducks, redhead ducks, wood ducks and mourning doves.
Overall, taking a banded bird is a rare occurrence. Many veteran wingshooters never have taken a banded bird. That rarity is a large part of why taking a banded bird is almost universally seen as a highlight of a hunt, and the metal bands have cachet as talismans or items of honor for most hunters.
But not all hunters or others who encounter a banded bird report the birds. That leaves a lot of useful information out of reach of science and wildlife managers. And over the last 20 years, the Bird Banding Lab has incorporated developing technology making it easier to report bands, significantly enhancing reporting rates.
Until the mid-1990s, a person wanting to report a banded bird had a single option: writing a letter and mailing it to the vague address found on the band. With limited space on the small bands, they included only very basic contact instructions. For decades, bands read: “Avise Bird Band Write Wash. D.C. USA,” or “Avise Fish & Wildlife Service Write Washington D.C. USA.” It often took weeks or months for those reporting bands to receive the “Certificate of Appreciation” that included the information about the banded bird, including the bird’s age when banded, when and where and by whomit was banded.
Not surprising, these “avise” bands, named for the shortened misspelling of “advise,” generated a depressingly low reporting rate.
“In the 1980s, less than a third of bands were reported,” Oldenburger said. A boost from technology
That dramatically changed in the mid-1990s when the Bird Banding Lab set up a toll-free 800 number system where bands could be reported with a phone call. Reporting rates “more than doubled,” Peterjohn said.
As digital technology exploded in the early 2000s, the Bird Banding Lab added an online band-reporting option and has refined and improved that site over the past few years, including almost instant information on the bird and a printable PDF of the traditional “Certificate of Appreciation.”
Current leg bands list both the 800 number (800-327-BAND) and the website (www.reportband.gov). Reporting rates for some bird species now exceeds 80 percent, Oldenburger said.
This year, the Bird Banding Lab made available a smartphone application for reporting bands. Hunters who download the app can, while still afield, report a banded bird and learn its history.
About 60 percent of bird-band reports are now submitted online, and that number continues to grow, Peterjohn said. Plans are to switch all bird-band reporting to the online site in the near future, he added.
All this is a far cry from 1803, when famed artist/ornithologist John James Audubon made the first documented effort at banding North American birds by tying silver threads to the legs of fledgling phoebes to see if the birds returned to their natal area as adults. But the object is the same: to unravel some of the mystery of the lives of creatures that embody unfettered freedom.