Bird in Hand

Bird banding is one of the oldest and most important techniques used for studying and identifying individual birds. In order to identify and keep track of individual birds, scientists put aluminum bands on birds’ legs. Similar to the license plate on a car, each aluminum band is engraved with a unique set of numbers.

Founded as an all-volunteer bird-banding facility under the auspices of the Ontario Bird Banding Association in 1960, the Long Point Bird Observatory is located in a peninsular wilderness area, on Lake Erie, which is renowned for its concentrations of migrating birds. It was the first Observatory in North America, and remains the only one of its scope in Canada. It is also Canada’s most productive bird banding station, and since 1960, LPBO has banded 1,072,981 of 296 species.

I am drawn to working with bird banders because of not only their care and attention that they have for the birds that they band, but also the sheer human curiosity, care and connection that they make with each bird.