Bird Banding

RAS Sponsors Bird Research

Since 1998, Richmond Audubon has provided funding and person-power to study the breeding success and adult survival of songbirds. Our site is one of over 1,300 North American locations set up to learn why birds  breed successfully (or why they don’t) and why adult birds survive from one year to the next.

MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship) – is the national program coordinated by the Institute for Bird Populations (IBP). Former MAPS sites include Westview and the Powhatan Wildlife Management Area, however, since 2007 Dutch Gap Conservation Area has been maintained as a study site. Dutch Gap is overseen by Master Bird Bander, Bob Reilly, who helps keep banding permits up to date; however, banding operations are run by Julie Kacmarcik.

What do Julie Kacmarcik and the Audubon volunteers do to study the birds? Each Spring in the very early morning, they capture the birds in mist nets, band the birds with a lightweight, numbered aluminum leg band, and then examine them. The volunteers collect information on age, sex, body  condition, and reproductive status. Wing examination, for instance, can help to determine the bird’s age and whether or not it has begun fall molt. Once all the necessary information is gathered, the bird is released unharmed. Subsequent recapture data provides information on survival, reproductive rates, and sometimes, movement patterns. The Federal Bird Banding Laboratory regulates the overall operation to assure that birds are handled safely and data are recorded accurately.

In 2017, Julie and her team also began Fall migration banding in addition to their summer work. They expect this work to continue this  year and for many years to follow.

Over the 33 years the Institute for Bird Populations has coordinated MAPS, they have made a variety of interesting and useful  findings:

• IBP has found that the smaller birds that migrate long distances (the Neotropics) have a higher year-to-year survival than small birds which migrate to temperate climates such as Georgia and north Florida.
• IBP has determined the minimum habitat size needed to successfully  breed for several bird species. This is a finding which could useful to organizations such as the Department of Defense which manage large tracts of land with multiple uses.
• Richmond Audubon’s MAPS study is only a very small part of the larger study. However, we have had some intriguing findings too. Approximately ten percent of the birds we capture are recaptured in subsequent years. This includes the year-round residents as well as the migrants who return to the site where they were born or nested previously. One of our recaptures was an Indigo Bunting that we captured every year for five years. That makes her quite a “frequent flyer.” We estimate she covered more than 20,000 in those five years, flying  between Goochland County and her wintering ground in Mexico.

For more information about MAPS results visit the The Institute For Bird Populations website. 

Special Thanks – to all the MAPS volunteers, their families and friends for their support, to Chesterfield Parks and Rec, Richmond Audubon Society, Dominion Energy Virginia, and Smurfit Stone in Hopewell for contributing  to our efforts.