Bird Banding Gear
Since the last photo of the owl getting banded had a lot of you thinking it was getting an amputation, I thought I’d share some of the gear that is used.
Firstly, here is a video about banding. This is the one I linked in the other post, but I don’t think many saw it. It’s a long video, but the first 5 minutes are banding the owl, then they measure it, determine sex, and do the UV light test to agree it. Lots of interesting stuff in here.
https://i.ibb.co/VQqgk35/Fed-Aluminum-Bird-Bands-with-dims.jpg
These are bands. You can see they come in a wide range of sizes. They’re just a ring of metal with an ID number on them. They are out around the Tarsus with banding pliers.
https://i.ibb.co/BZyVbhk/owl-skeleton-2.jpg
The pliers have a raised post (red arrow) to open up the band, and blunt holes (green arrow) matched to the size of the ring so it can only be closed to a safe size.
https://i.ibb.co/wLzGLsy/banding-pliers-2.jpg
How do you know what size rings and pliers to use? There is a sizing gauge!
https://i.ibb.co/fQxkdLJ/LEGGAUGE-NEW-1080x.jpg
If a band does happen to be too snug, there is a tool to spread it back open.
https://i.ibb.co/cYZF9Lv/band-removal.jpg
I’d post more, but without native uploads working, I don’t want to make a big post and have it not work.
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