Springbrook Nature Center: Birding Banding

Nicole Willms

Story #5

            I arrived at the Springbrook Nature Center, located in Fridley, Minn, not knowing what to expect but was looking forward to learning about bird banding. As I pulled into the parking lot I could not believe the amount of cars that were parked. I thought to myself “there is no way all these cars are here for this”, I was wrong; there were quite a few people inside the Center getting ready to help learn and handle the birds!

Springbrook is home to many different types of birds that land in the boundaries of the Nature Center for example, the Snowy Owl, Spotted Sandpiper, Eastern Blue Bird and the Bald Eagle. As I entered the Nature Center I walked into the room where people were listening, talking and handling the birds. Ron Refsnider, a retiree from the United States Fish and Wildlife Services, was the fellow in the front of the room speaking. Ron has been volunteering for the Nature Center for 20 years and it’s his responsibility to gather all the information on the birds and put it into the National Data Base for others to see.

I was eager to start learning what bird banding was about. Bird banding refers to the capturing of birds and placing a band on their legs to help them determine their mating occurrences, to see whether or not they come back after flying south for the winter, to help determine disease or changes in the birds. The volunteers that help are people within the community, bird lovers and employees from the Nature Center.  The volunteers help capture these birds and bring them into the Nature Center for Ron to check. Ron checks out the feathers shape, length, color, sex, height, weight, length, eye color and the legs of the birds.

 Many of the birds we saw had been captured many times over the last 5 years. It was interesting to see the information collected from previous captures and how they have changed so much in a short period. Some of the volunteers said the reason behind bird banding is to help see how various things such as weather, disease and hibernation affect the birds.

 After the information is entered into the system, they proceed to take the birds back outside and release them. The capturing of the birds is harmless; the Center has several metal enclosed traps set out along with several tall net like traps. Once the bird has gone into the trap, they take a cloth bag and put the bird inside and transport it back to Ron. People go out every 30-45 minutes to check and see if they have trapped any birds. The group of volunteers figured that the traps were light because of the changing in the seasons. The volunteers said the prime time for bird catching is June and July because of the warmer temperatures and the birds will migrate south before winter starts.