Birding enthusiasts meet enthusiastic birds in park and wildlife refuge

A group of birding enthusiasts and wannabe birding enthusiasts gathered in the Charlotte Park and Wildlife Refuge on Saturday, May 17, to hear about birds and biodiversity in the park.

They joined Mark LaBarr of Audubon Vermont and Ali Wagner of Green Mountain Audubon Society. LaBarr was banding birds that morning, and while he worked he discussed habitat management steps taken there to improve conditions for golden-winged warblers and other shrubland birds.

LaBarr had hung five mist nets around the vicinity of where the group gathered. Like their name implies, mist nets are very thin, gossamer nets and hard to see in the low light of a forest. When a bird flies into one of these it collapses around them into a pocket where it is restrained, but can’t hurt itself before LeBarr takes it out and brings it back to the banding station.

The goal was golden-winged warblers. Although they could be heard during the presentation, which LeBarr paused periodically to interrupt himself and identify one of the many species of birds that could be heard. During the talk, no golden-winged warblers were caught, but a couple of other species were, including a chickadee, which LaBarr banded and weighed and whose data he recorded.

LaBarr is a federally licensed bird bander, who has been doing this for about 30 years.

“I’ve banded maybe 15,000 birds, everything from little chickadees to albatrosses in Hawaii,” he said. “Each one of these bands has a unique number on it. When I report that to the bird-banding lab, they’ll keep track of it. If we ever catch the bird again, we’ll be able to read that band and know who it is.

The chickadee he had found in one of his mist nets was 15.5 grams. LeBarr sends the band number, the bird’s weight and other data to a bird banding lab in Laurel, Maryland.