The Main Event--banding birds at Hazel Run, 24 May 2011

[hazelrunpack]

As mentioned in another thread, I was the high bidder in a silent auction fund-raiser for a local nature center (Beaver Creek Reserve, just outside of Fall Creek). After the trial run in March, the banders returned in late May for the Main Event.

The crew arrived at 7 and by 7:20, we were already netting birds. Here Augie is removing one of the first birds of the morning.



The mist nets are so lightweight that they're nearly invisible. If you look closely at the image below, you can see some of the netting close to the pole, but the camera was not able to clearly resolve the netting that spreads over the whole right-hand side of this pic:





Although most of the hummingbirds are able to detect and evade, we did have 9 that ended up in the nets. Since the crew is not licensed to band them, they were released. It was interesting watching them approach the nets, hover, back up and fly over the barrier. Occasionally, we'd see one sitting on the top edge of a net!