Banding tracks bird health, motions at Illinois Raptor Center

Travis Wilcoxen, a biology teacher at Millikin University, runs a bird banding station at the Illinois Raptor Center in Decatur.

“The goal is to capture birds for the sake of monitoring bird populations,” Wilcoxen explained. “Also in our research, we take blood samples. We use those blood samples to look for antibodies to disease and test for the general quality of health of the birds we capture.”

Jacques Nuzzo, program director at the Illinois Raptor Center, said the banding job fits with the center’s clinical focus and can offer valuable details for examining the health of birds given the center for rehab.

The birds are recorded in what are called “mist nets.” They are a great mesh established on poles, “usually with a wall of vegetation behind so that the net just blends into the background,” said Wilcoxen.

The birds are thoroughly eliminated from the internet and put in fabric bags to keep them safe up until they are required to the banding location.

The public can see the banding procedure on particular days noted on the Illinois Raptor Center Bird Banding Station’s Facebook page. The last session this spring will be from 6:15 to 11 a.m. May 25. Banding sessions can be canceled due to the fact that of climate condition, so make sure to follow the Facebook page if you are considering going.

It’s remarkable to see these feathered animals up close and discover information that are simple to miss out on when they are flying or hopping around in the bush.

Once the birds are “in the hand,” Wilcoxen and his team take measurements such as the length of the wings, tail and lower leg and the breadth of their head. They likewise identify their body mass by weighing the bag while they remain in it and deducting the weight of the bag.

“Using these structural measurements with their body mass, we can create an index that’s kind of like a BMI,” said Wilcoxen. “They should be a certain weight for their structural size, and birds that are above that are in better condition than birds that are below that.”

Wilcoxen has actually been banding birds for about 18 years and said he has actually banded about 6,000 birds because time. He is a U.S. Geological Survey master bander, which allows him to band songbirds and raptors, such as hawks, for research study functions.

Banding details is sent to the USGS Bird Banding Laboratory. When a banded bird is reported elsewhere, scientists have the ability to rebuild the motions of private birds and identify such things as migration paths, varieties and life expectancy, according to the USGS website.

Different techniques are utilized to record raptors and “you don’t catch a lot of raptors in the spring,” said Nuzzo.

“The raptor banding project that we have going on here is interesting because we’re going to be banding wild raptors and the rehab raptors,” he said. They also will be taking blood samples.

“We’re going to be building up a database of what normal blood values are in birds of prey, because we don’t know what that is,” said Nuzzo.

He said the center takes a look at raptor rehab as a science.

“Every one of these birds that comes in here is a book of information, and so we started collecting data points on these birds,” said Nuzzo.