The answer will depend in part on what species you are banding.

At the South Jetty Banding Station, where the majority of captured species
are warblers, I operate under the following guidelines:
1. I do not band on rainy days.
2. I limit the number of nets to 5/person.
3. I check all nets at 15 minute intervals.
4. I close nets if the number of species to process exceeds 10.
5. I will process at the net when necessary to fascilitate release.
I have banded at this site since 1989. The total banded is about 500. My
only casualty at this site to date was a Yellow Warbler that was killed in
the net by a passing Northern Harrier.

Generally speaking if the birds being banded appear shocky, it is less likely
to be from the cold then from hanging in the net too long or sitting in a
capture bag too long. What you describe here does not sould like a reaction
to cold, it sounds like handler shock.
If you're capturing a volume that is so high that you feel backed up to a
point that birds are being stressed, you need more help or fewer birds.

With shorebirds (a single flock can fill up a net with 100 birds), I keep a
large cardboard box containing sand and covered with a blanket. This allows
the birds to wait in a natural position of their choosing while we process.
Shorebirds are more inclined to go into shock. One should never attempt to
band shorebirds without trained assistants to keep the handling time as low
as is possible.


>
>
>Any banders out there?
>
>I am trying to help Ginny Rosenberg, bander at the Oak Island MAPS station
>(Sauvie Island, near Portland, Oregon), figure out how to keep captured
>birds warm during processing. We were worried about stressing out some of
>the birds last year on cold mornings (particularly when the birds didn't
>look too well on releasing), and we'd like to hear if other people have
>ideas about how to solve this problem. We band from late May through
>August, and so mostly the weather is fine, but those first few hours can be
>pretty chilly on some mornings. Has anyone used tents? Or warming lamps?
>I know that the Ridgefield station has a building for their winter sparrow
>banding. Unfortunately, there are no structures at our station.
>
>Please write/copy me directly if you have ideas. Thanks.
>
>Julie
>
>----------------
>Julie Fukuda
>tamarack at q7.com
>
>

--
*********************************** I got the blues so bad one time
* Mike Patterson, Astoria, OR * it put my face in a permanent frown
* mpatters at orednet.org * but I am feelin' so much better
*http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters* I could cake-walk into town