Thursday with temperatures in the 90's we had a team of DEEP workers, Menunkatuck Board members and landlord volunteers show up to band our purple martins. This is really the culmination of the season for us, though we still monitor, do nest changes and make sure things are ok for the birds.
Altogether there were 186 birds banded. 70 were banded at Chase Pond, 50 at the Nature Center at Hammonasset and 66 in Guilford. We anticipated more birds this year but happy that after the rough start we had that many to band. We are especially proud of the growth of the Guilford colony which went from 5 nests last year to 21 this year. There was an interesting discussion regarding martins that seem to be divided into 2 species, type of housing and even weather variations between the direct shoreline and Guilford's more inland colony. We certainly hope we don't experience the same struggles next year.
Yesterday during the banding we began to see our bird mites which have been relatively absent until now. These tiny mites invade the nests in the thousands, and is one of the primary reasons we do nest changes. Imagine these poor featherless babies covered in crawling bugs on there pink skin...not pretty.
We also learned from the state that we can swab out the nests with rubbing alcohol to help get rid of the bugs, we are always learning something.
The banding process itself is done in stages..the houses are lowered, each bird of banding age is put in a small container with its nest mates. The containers are labelled with the compartment numbers so they are returned to the right compartment. They are brought to the banding table where they are weighed and compared to the age photos. They are then banded with both a Federal band (silver on the right leg) and a colony band color and number on the left. The birds are then returned home. We try to expedite the process so they are not out of the nest too long and the houses can be raised so the parents can resume feeding.
We are especially thankful to our volunteers and our Board members that came out to help and of course to our landlords who help support this labor of love.
Altogether there were 186 birds banded. 70 were banded at Chase Pond, 50 at the Nature Center at Hammonasset and 66 in Guilford. We anticipated more birds this year but happy that after the rough start we had that many to band. We are especially proud of the growth of the Guilford colony which went from 5 nests last year to 21 this year. There was an interesting discussion regarding martins that seem to be divided into 2 species, type of housing and even weather variations between the direct shoreline and Guilford's more inland colony. We certainly hope we don't experience the same struggles next year.
Yesterday during the banding we began to see our bird mites which have been relatively absent until now. These tiny mites invade the nests in the thousands, and is one of the primary reasons we do nest changes. Imagine these poor featherless babies covered in crawling bugs on there pink skin...not pretty.
We also learned from the state that we can swab out the nests with rubbing alcohol to help get rid of the bugs, we are always learning something.
The banding process itself is done in stages..the houses are lowered, each bird of banding age is put in a small container with its nest mates. The containers are labelled with the compartment numbers so they are returned to the right compartment. They are brought to the banding table where they are weighed and compared to the age photos. They are then banded with both a Federal band (silver on the right leg) and a colony band color and number on the left. The birds are then returned home. We try to expedite the process so they are not out of the nest too long and the houses can be raised so the parents can resume feeding.
We are especially thankful to our volunteers and our Board members that came out to help and of course to our landlords who help support this labor of love.