Over the past weekend I got a chance to go out with a professor at the local college that teaches a Field Biology course at the local CUNY campus. I’ve traveled a bit and as much as I enjoy it I wanted to get involved with biologists and learn more of what’s around us and our interaction with it. Professor Brown (in the orange above) invited me to his class and I happily accepted. It took a week or two to get the day right, but once the spot was open for me I headed down to meet with him at a near by park. The way this all works is the research being done here. A population study is being done between Prof. Brown and a PhD student by the name of Juliet. It’s part of the MAPS (monitoring avian productivity and survivorship) program by the Institute for Bird Populations. They help to contribute to over 100 years of information already in the archive. Handling the birds is strictly done by themselves to make sure everything is okay and legitimate, while the students get to learn a bit about the area around them.
We started out around 8′ish showing up to see how I could cover the event as best as possible and to get the info I was after. I met with Juliet and basically dived right in. I observed and photographed as they began to setup the mist nets to temporarily capture the birds for study.
This mist nets are uniquely designed so that the bird cannot see them in flight. And I will tell you that once they are fully setup neither can I. The net has special pockets so when the bird falls down due to bumping into the net he can be caught in the safely and without escape. As you can see above first the ends of the net are gathered in a bunch. Creating this alternating pattern with the rope is important when making a cross bridge. Basically two nets sharing a single pole. As if in an ‘L’ formation.
When looking for a location in a forest the ideal spot would have to be a small open forested area. Typically many birds traverse these open areas opposed to a dense forested region where they might scatter outward. This concentrates them and makes capture much more successful.
This is one side of that ‘L’ formations I was talking about. These mist nets are first strung out like this, but then expanded from the top to the bottom of the pole (difficult to photograph opened.) This way the mesh will be fine and not easily seen. Photographing it was no easy feat either. Luckily light was low in the morning and this allowed me to help it show just enough.
As you can see here a male downy woodpecker has been caught in the net. Now it is very important that these nets are constantly monitored. As a bird sits in the net it will try and move and fidget around naturally. Checking often makes sure they aren’t too entangled and would need to be cut from the net. The bird wouldn’t be harmed it would just be let go and you’d have to get a new net. Keeping the nets around and using them as long as possible is a real priority as they/we don’t want them in the landfill to entangle anything not going to be removed from the netting.
Once removing them the birds are put into these larger net containers for transport. This way they have movement and will not hurt themselves and allows for less stress on the bird.
After gathering a handful of birds they are taken back to be analyzed for their moult patterns, measurements, weight, and approx age. Then releasing them back into the environment unharmed.
Here the professor is inspecting the birds moult pattern on its feathers. The students make sure to take note and pay attention as it may be on the next test!
The walk back is definitely not a pleasant one. Several trips are made back and forth to constantly check the nets and see what other species may be in and around the area. From pushing through foliage, phragmites, and large left over rain puddles; more like small ponds if you ask me, haha (I was unprepared and had sneakers!)
The trip however I can tell you was worth it. A large amount of birds were captured and released. A definite success. Due to the heavy rains in the past few days it is thought that that may have something to contribute to the larger sighting of birds. Bugs were definitely making a presence and as you know bugs are ‘good eats’ (sorry Alton Brown) for birds!
One bird did prove difficult. It took the expertise of both Juliet and Prof. Brown to get this bird out. The bird actually found the one small hole that existed in the net and got caught wrapping himself around the pole. Murphy’s Law at its best you would say. They did have me get the scissors as they were close to just cutting the net, but just in the nick of time they were able to free the bird and let him go due to the stress he was under. Also wasn’t a rare species as well.
Releasing the birds was enjoyed all around and not just by the staff. A student released a hermit thrush while the professor released a white-throated sparrow.
The day of course was enjoyed by all. The students were especially happy when they were able to whip out what ever camera-strapped electronic device they had in their pocket and got to document the species for their journals. If you were curious the students would do plant studies while the staff would run back to see what birds were caught. Juliet wo-manned the nets for most of the time informing Prof. Brown if any had been caught. Which at that time we would hustle back to release them from the mist nets for further study. These population and quality of population studies are especially interesting in our ever changing sub-urban/urban environments. As we humans expand and change our interaction with the environment around us the populations of species that inhabit those locations change. Whether it be detrimental to the edging effect on forests where many species only strive in wide stretches of vegetation or those that have adapted to feed off of humans trash and have seen their populations sky rocket due to our messy ways. It’s very important and often over looked how much we need this studies to make sure our environment is always in check because if we take care of Nature. then Nature will take care of us.
Photographically speaking I approached the day at first using the ISO auto (or auto ISO?) function in my camera. I knew the skies were over cast and it would be dark under all those trees so I didn’t want to worry if ISO 200, 400, 800 or more was enough. I set my minimum shutter speed that I knew was enough to freeze the kind of shots I was going for and stuck with it. As long as I didn’t see my ISO dip into some crazy range constantly I was more then happy. As the day moved on and the skies cleared I whipped out my SB-800 as flash fill. Much more effective then that unmovable pop-up on my D300. Using the zoom head was a big help to try and not light the foreground of the students too brightly in comparison to the professor in the distance. Lastly if you noticed there were some high contrast situations. Particularly when everyone is sitting at the table and I am looking out to the picnic tables. In order to take care of the highlights that were there I dialed down my exposure using my compensation options on my camera body by 1.5-2 stops and then upped my flash just a tad to compensate. A trick I have thoroughly enjoyed using to pull exposure to within the dynamic range of my sensor. My white balance was also cloudy all day as I knew it would be shady/overcast and plus people look better with a splash of warmth don’t you agree? 