BIRD BANDING TRAINING
WRC has hosted two banding training sessions to date, as well as being able to send trainees for further experience and trainig to our partners at Bird Studies Canada (BSC) and at Klamath Bird Observatory (Oregon) (KBO).
Our first Bird-banding Workshop (see slide show) was held May 1st-17th, 2002 as part of a BirdStudies Canada (BSC)/BirdLife Jamaica (BLJ) project to generate a core group of Jamaican conservation leaders which is equipped to promote sustainable, effective, long-term programs to conserve resident and Neotropical migrant birds in Jamaica.
This workshop was funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), through BSC and by BLJ and by our own programme which is funded by National Fish & Wildlife Foundation (NFWF)
BSC brought down from Canada Master Bander Paul Prior, who excelled himself in getting the trainees out with nets open before dawn (well, before 6.00, anyway). Morning sessions generally lasted until 10.30 or 11.00 when nets were shut to avoid heat-stressing the birds. Afternoon lecture sessions covered theoretical materials as well as a review of practical questions which arose during the morning field session. The lectures took place on the cool verandah after a Sugar-Belly lunch. Subjects covered included determining age, sex, fat and moult of the birds and were of course reinforced in the morning netting sessions. We operated mist nets for a total of 506 hours and workshop participants (including Paul!) extracted 456 birds. We banded 185 resident birds and 131 migrants. The number of extractions also includes recaptured, newly-banded birds (47 residents and 58 migrants) and birds released without banding (34 residents (mostly hummingbirds) and 1 migrant. Black-whiskered Vireos (Vireo altiloquus; BWVI's or John Chewitt's) saved the day in some locations: resident birds seemed scarce in the clearings near the cockpit hills and tended to stay high in the canopy in forested areas. Thank heaven for migrants! It is not clear whether the BWVI's were just passing through the area, or whether they had displaced residents because the clearings were their preferred habitat. More research is needed and this could be a nice little project for a Masters student.
See:- Executive Summary, or Full Report
A second training workshop was held in January 2004 with the participation of KBO and with funding from our NFWF programme.
The goals of this workshop were to build on the foundation of previous training and to introduce new participants to the science of bird monitoring, specifically in relation to operation of constant effort mist-netting stations.
Though this course followed a broadly similar outline to our first course, much emphasis was placed on the use of moult and wear patterns as a method of determining age, sex, breeding condition and health. Trainees became proficient in assessing up to 65 different parameters on each bird, while managing to keep handling time to a minimum (our target is five minutes per bird).
See:- Executive Summary,, Full Report or Recommendations
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