Heading north to do some bird banding
Hi All:
Susan and I are about to head to Whitefish Point for three days, Susan will be netting and banding crossbills (we hope) and I will be netting and banding redpolls. We have been getting 75-100 redpolls at our feeders and I believe there are both subspecies of Common Redpoll and also Hoary Redpolls. I'll be measuring wing length, weighing and photographing the birds. Planned photos are rump, total back, under-tail coverts and full frontal. The plumage differences of what's coming to the feeders is pretty astounding.
Two weeks ago redpolls were not on the license that covers me, so we had to release 20-30 birds. That was really frustrating. Looking forward to pulling more of those little beauties from the nets. Then comes the real work.
Also planning on photographing trees for the Michigan Botanists' Big Year. Which is just a fun project.
That's about all. Photos to come pretty soon.
Michael