16 May
Our luck turned again today – for the better! After spending much of the morning looking for banded birds and their nests, we located two more and by the end of the day, the tags were in our hands! So, we are now up to 3 tags from this region. While this might not seem like a lot, retrieving these tags is somewhat of a miracle. First, the tags have to actually stay on the bird….for 11 months. Then, the bird has to actually survive migration from this location and back to it. Next, we actually need to recapture this bird in our hands to carefully remove the tag to retrieve the data. This depends on both the bird itself as well as the owners of the house where the individual has built its nest. And finally, finally, the tags actually have to operate well over the time period in which they traveled with their host. So, it is really a lot to ask and you can imagine how happy we are to have these tags back in our hands!
Our luck turned again today – for the better! After spending much of the morning looking for banded birds and their nests, we located two more and by the end of the day, the tags were in our hands! So, we are now up to 3 tags from this region. While this might not seem like a lot, retrieving these tags is somewhat of a miracle. First, the tags have to actually stay on the bird….for 11 months. Then, the bird has to actually survive migration from this location and back to it. Next, we actually need to recapture this bird in our hands to carefully remove the tag to retrieve the data. This depends on both the bird itself as well as the owners of the house where the individual has built its nest. And finally, finally, the tags actually have to operate well over the time period in which they traveled with their host. So, it is really a lot to ask and you can imagine how happy we are to have these tags back in our hands!