On this blog, we tend to talk a lot about the birds and the data we are collecting to better understand their movement patterns. For many of us, though, the banding station is just as much about the people. Here at Cape Florida Banding Station, we are fundamentally motivated by our responsibility to future generations. It’s why we have trained dozens of volunteers over the years, and provided education programming for hundreds of people of all ages. The birds need all people to get involved, and we believe it’s our job to inspire that engagement.
On Saturday, September 14th, we had the privilege to do just that when the Girl Scouts of Tropical Florida came to visit the station as part of their Girl Scouts Love State Parks event. It was a humid, hot, and slow bird day but these young naturalists were unphased. We were pleased to introduce over 100 scouts and their families to the fascinating world of bird banding!
Over the course of the morning, we hosted 3 groups of scouts of a broad age range. We demonstrated to them the tools we use to gather data, including showing them the small bands we place on the bird’s legs (much to their awe!). We showed them how we use books to identify birds and learn how to tell how old they are. The scouts learned about the incredible journeys these birds are on along the Atlantic Flyway and were shocked to learn how far our small songbirds travel. We talked about e how they fuel these long journeys by putting on fat and the importance of stopover sites in helping them acquire much needed food for the next leg of their trip. We also talked to them about how climate change and development are changing these movement patterns and making it harder for them to complete their annual migrations, having to travel farther between stopover sites and sometimes finding that the food they need may not be available as it once was.
Perhaps most importantly, we talked to them about what they can do to make the world a safer place for birds. After meeting several birds, and even getting to help release them, I feel pretty confident that these young leaders are going to be planting more bird-friendly gardens, making sure their windows are bird-safe, and doing everything they can to make sure we protect connected landscapes, like through the state park system, from some of the worst impacts of climate change so the birds can continue to migrate as they have for thousands of years. And who knows? Some of them may even become ornithologists themselves.
We are grateful to the Girl Scouts of Tropical Florida for the opportunity to speak to these young advocates, to the staff of Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park for their help with logistics and set up, and of course to our volunteer team who kept the station running smoothly while we hosted the Girl Scouts.
If you would like to bring your group out to learn about birding, bird banding, and what we can all do to keep them flying, please reach out to us at info@capefloridabandingstation.org.
| SPECIES | NEW | RETURN | RECAPTURE | 9/15 – 9/21 TOTAL | SEASON TOTAL |
| Chuck-will’s widow | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Acadian flycatcher | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Red-eyed vireo | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| Blue-gray gnatcatcher | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 8 |
| Northern parula | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 |
| Cape May warbler | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| Black-throated blue warbler | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 13 |
| Yellow-throated warbler | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| Prairie warbler | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Black & white warbler | 4 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 28 |
| American redstart | 6 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 48 |
| Worm-eating warbler | 8 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 47 |
| Swainson’s warbler | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 17 |
| Ovenbird | 11 | 0 | 5 | 16 | 92 |
| Northern waterthrush | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 24 |
| Louisiana waterthrush | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Common yellowthroat | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6 |
| Northern cardinal | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Common grackle | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| TOTAL | 45 | 0 | 11 | 56 | 312 |
| # BIRDS CAPTURED | # SPECIES | # NETS | # NET HOURS | CAPTURE RATE (BIRDS/100NH) | |
| Total from 9/2 – 9/7 | 162 | 16 | 21 | 417.84 | 38.77 |
| Total from 9/8 – 9/14 | 94 | 11 | 23 | 332.49 | 28.27 |
| Total from 9/15 – 9/21 | 56 | 15 | 23 | 193.16 | 28.99 |
| Season total so far | 312 | 19 | 23 | 943.49 | 33.07 |
Post by Steffanie Munguia, volunteer Bander-in-Charge.