Tracking tower birds The return each year of Ontario's migratory birds is an event which inspires a sense of affectionate ownership of our native birds. It's easy to forget that for more than half the year their home may be in another hemisphere, as far away as Venezuela or Chile. Banding is one way of monitoring the flight paths and destinations of these birds across North, Central and South America. Although we've been banding New World birds for over 100 years we are still well behind Europe where an intensive effort by a much larger flock of licensed banders has contributed greatly to the existing store of knowledge. That's why the Fatal Light Awareness Program was so pleased this spring to get the go-ahead from the Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) allowing Lori Nichols, a bird bander permitted with the Toronto Bird Observatory (TBO), to band uninjured birds rescued from the architectural traps of Toronto's downtown core. Thinking that FLAP might be banding rehabilitated birds, CWS was initially reluctant to give permission (as was TBO). CWS works in close cooperation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to ensure that data collected differentiates birds which have been rehabilitated, i.e. birds which have received medical attention or which have been held for over 24 hours, from those which were captured for the express purpose of being banded. When a bird is banded a detailed report is submitted to CWS for checking and approval; the report is then forwarded to the Office of Migratory Bird Management. If the banded bird has been rehabilitated, additional, more complex reporting is demanded and it's easy to make mistakes. The majority of live birds picked up by FLAP volunteers, however, do not require medical intervention; they're simply lost or disoriented. Within hours of pick-up they are released in more hospitable surroundings than Toronto's concrete jungle. CWS officials agreed that since these healthy birds are already temporarily captive, it makes sense to band them. For an experienced and skilled bander like Lori, the procedure takes only 30 seconds. An "anklet" (correctly sized for the species of bird) with a unique nine-digit number is loosely fitted around the bird's leg. Then Lori does a quick examination. She estimates age, notes gender and measures the bird's wing chord (the distance between the shoulder and tip of the longest primary feather when the wing is folded) which is sometimes the only way to tell the sexes apart. Normally the bird's weight would also be recorded but a clip hanging scale is needed for that. (If you can donate one please call Lori Nichols at 416-604-8843.) If time permits, Lori will gently blow aside the breast feathers to see whether the bird has sizeable fat deposits ( a sign of good health). Lori has noted that the tower birds seem thinner than the ones she bands on Muggs Island in her work with TBO. Over 22 mornings this past spring Lori banded 170 birds, mainly ovenbirds, white-throated sparrows and hermit thrushes, although FLAP volunteers handed her a few unusual species as well. Among those were a brilliantly-coloured male Blackburnian warbler, a grasshopper sparrow (a species only banded three times in the past by TBO), a whip-poor-will and a chimney swift, which insisted on clinging to Lori's sweater! By banding birds that have hit Toronto's office towers we hope to discover the fate of individual birds (how long do they survive?) and learn more about their migration paths (do they return the same way they came or will they learn to avoid the perilous downtown route?). Stay tuned for further developments.