PEEC News:

Courtesy Photo

At 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 6, Dave Yeamans will give an updated talk at the Pajarito Environmental Education Center (PEEC) about bird banding. The talk is free and open to the public.

Bird banding starts with getting a permit to conduct a study on birds of a particular type in a defined area.

Yeamans’ talk will focus on passerines (perching birds in the areas around upper Alamo Canyon in Bandelier National Monument and the Valles Caldera ranch headquarters.

During bird migration season, researchers set up up to 20 nets 20 meters long and 3 meters high, and then patrol the nets every half hour for captured birds.

The birds are brought to the banding station, where researchers record 20 measures of size, age, sex and condition. Then, they clamp a numbered band around the bird’s leg and release it.

The information is later entered into a database for analysis that can help determine the health and distribution of the various species. Birds that are too big or too small for banding are released after a brief inspection, with opportunities for photographing them.

Yeamans’ talk will tell the story of local bird banding in photos and stories and movies.

He is a long-time bird watcher and has lately become an advocate for birding on the Pajarito Plateau, leading many birding trips in the Los Alamos area and farther afield.

Yeamans now helps band birds in Bandelier and the Valles Caldera. He also is an active member of the PEECBirders Yahoo group, where he helps answer bird identification questions and leads informal, early-morning bird walks.

For more information about this talk, visit www.PajaritoEEC.org, call 662-0460 or e-mail Programs@Pajaritoeec.org. 

To join the PEECBirders Yahoo group, visit http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/PEECbirders/ or search Yahoo Groups for PEECBirders (one word.)