My name is Hayley Kubler and I am a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. You are already familiar with me as I am the organizer and author of the posts on this blog. I have been working with Shelly since April, and I feel as if I learn something new every day. I have been helping her collect her thoughts and feelings in order to give them to you in a blog form! I call myself a “professional jack-of-all-trades” due to my varied studies and internships. I am an English major with an advertising minor, and I have a passion for American Sign Language. I figured I would take away the veil for this post in order to talk about who I have been working with this summer!
I wear many hats in this organization. Sometimes I’m the copywriter, teacher, presenter, artist, organizer, researcher, or the tech girl. The newest hat that I’ve put on is a Volunteer Advisor to the two Girl Scouts we have working with us. They are both completing their Silver Award by working with the Bluebird Restoration Project, which is a worthy project indeed. Growing up, my dad was a park ranger and a forester, and also wore many hats while working with the Department of Natural Resources. I really value getting active in the community through nature, and I have enjoyed watching these young women grow professionally through their Silver Awards. I asked Sarah Liming and Michaela Pittenger to write down what they have learned about bird banding, one of our latest lessons at the Academy. Later on they will be writing a post about their experiences this summer, but here is just one day out at the UWEC Children’s Nature Academy.
Hayley, Michaela, and Sarah at Bluebird Central!
Sarah Liming:
Larry Bennett taught us about bird banding and I personally found it very interesting. He went into depth to show us what bird banding is all about. I got to learn the process of banding where you set up the net, catch the bird, band the bird, and then set the bird free. Larry showed us all the different sized bands they use for different birds and he also had great pictures. I did not know that you needed a banding license before you could band. Larry told us a story about the experience he got to have when he assisted banding a Golden Eagle. This was an immaculate story and you could tell it really touched him.
Banding is something that you have to go to school for and take classes on it. You can’t just get up one day and go band a bird. Banding is used to keep track of the birds and where they go. In Larry’s story he told us how they not only banded the Golden Eagle but put a tracking device on it so they could know where she was always.
I think that banding is a very interesting topic and hope to one day get to see it up and close.
Michaela Pittenger:
While earning my Silver Award I spent time with the Bluebird Restoration Project. I learned that there are different sizes of bird bands for each bird. In order to put the bird band on the bird, they catch it in a Mist Net that they put up.
It’s really cool how Larry Bennett from Beaver Creek Reserve brought a board with all different kinds of bird bands on it to show the variety of sizes to the class. Larry did an excellent job teaching the class about bird banding. I learned a lot from him.
They put bands on the birds so they can track them.
The story about how he got to help band Jeanette Golden Eagle was really fun to listen to, I was so interested that I went to The National Eagle Center’s website and I could see where Jeanette the Golden Eagle was! I also learned that not only do they put bands on birds they also can put these little backpacks on them for tracking.
Sarah and Michaela at the Academy