6 Massachusetts Audubon Society 



THE FUN OF BIRD BANDING 

 By Kathleen M. Hempel, Elkader, Iowa. 



I have often wondered if any one took up bird banding for the same 

 reason that I did? I will confess that what attracted me most was the fact 

 that I could actually handle the wild birds, study them at close range, ex- 

 amine their plumage, and feel that at last I was really becoming acquainted 

 with the little people of the trees. Of course, I w^as interested in the scientific 

 side too, discovering whether birds banded would return the next year, how 

 far they travelled, how long they lived, and other questions that we are going 

 to try to solve in this way. All this I have found more interesting than I 

 ever thought it could be, and I welcome with enthusiasm all entrants to my 

 trap, whether new, repeats, or returns. But true bird lovers will understand 

 what I mean when I say that the most fascinating pai^t of it all is the fact 

 that I can really hold the birds in my hands. 



It was in the fall of 1920, when the Biological Survey began calling for 

 volimteers, that I began the work. It took some time before I could get a 

 tinner to make my trap, and so it was December before I got fairly started. 

 I selected our back yard as my station, for in the first place the birds had 

 been coming there a good many years for food, as I always have fed them 

 each winter. On an elm tree there is a suet holder always filled with suet, 

 even in summer, and this attracts the woodpeckers all the year around. I 

 always have had a window box spread with cracked nuts, corn and sun- 

 flower seeds. So when I was selecting a site I thought this would be the 

 best place. I found if I placed seeds and other small bait in the trap it fell 

 to the ground. So I took the cover from a large wooden box and set my 

 trap on that. In this way, although the food fell through the meshes, it was 

 not lost and the birds could pick it up easily. My first visitor was a chicka- 

 dee. We were both frightened. I am sure that my heart fluttered every bit 

 as fast as his did. I know I held him very awkwardly, tlie bird in one hand, 

 the instruction book in the other, and finally I succeeded in getting him 

 banded with no ill results. 



Nuthatches, downy woodpeckers and other chickadees visited my trap 

 daily, and by spring I was ready for the larger birds. I knew that it would 

 be impossible for them to enter, for the entrance was much too small. I 

 surely was in a quandary, for if I enlarged the opening the smaller birds 

 would be able to run in and out without being caught, but the idea of catch- 

 ing the larger birds was too tempting to be resisted, and so with some large 

 pliers I made the opening larger. The results were both satisfactory and 

 disappointing, for though I succeeded in attracting the grackles, wood- 

 peckers, catbirds, robins, and bluejays, the chickadees scuttled in an out in 

 the most shameless manner, and I was unable to catch them. Finally I hit 

 upon the following plan, which will work very well, until the chickadees 

 find a way to outwit you. Still I advise others to try it. I secured some 

 large pasteboard boxes and cut strips about three inches wide from the 

 covers, these I laid along the funnel-shaped opening, with the ends extending 

 into the first compartment. The birds ran in, but when they tried to get out 

 they found only a small opening between the end of the slips, and this seemed 

 to confuse them, for they either flew into the othei part or ran into the 

 corners until I drove them into the other compartment and released them. 

 At first I was afraid I would be unable to get the larger birds, but I caught 

 red-bellied and hairy woodpeckers and blue jay also. You see the cardboard 



