An opposing view from a bird-bander



I read the thread about the pros and cons of bird banding with great interest. As a bird-bander I'd like to offer some input.



I hate birds. I always have. I don't recall the moment that I realized that I hated birds, but must have been at a very early age. When I was in the first grade, I began to keep a list of all the birds that I saw and hated. At some point along the way I realized that my mission in life would be to dedicate it, my life that is, to the extermination of these feathered pestilence.



I decided that if I wanted to get rid of them all, I would need to learn as much about them as I possibly could. So, I started to study their every move. I forced myself to watch them on hours on end. I read everything that I could in a quest to find the silver bullet that would do them in.



In my teenage years, I realized that there was a whole subculture of people who actually like the stupid little things. I began to hang around them to see if they knew something about birds that I did not. To my horror, I discovered that these people held some kind of strange reverence for the silly little list that I had accumulated. Apparently, seeing more than 300 of these things was a very tough task in the state of South Carolina, especially for a kid of only sixteen. Little did they know that my list was one built on a deep seeded hatred of birds.



In my adulthood I realized that just watching these rats with wings wasn't going to get me to a point where I could exterminate large quantities of them. I needed another plan. I decided that I would go to a hippie graduate school and learn from "real" scientist the secrets of how to knock off birds. In fact this was a perfect thing to do. Not only could I learn how to kill birds, but, I could also set out to sabotage whatever the heck these "real" scientist were doing! Life mission renewed.



What a gold mine! I learned how to take data, twist it to look the way I wanted. Better yet, I learned that if the data didn't say what I wanted I could make it up to fit my needs! Then there was the moment of true enlightenment. I learned that banding birds would kill them out right. Well slap me on the ass and call me Patsy! Why hadn't I thought of this? I was always afraid that touching them would spread diseases and parasites to me. Apparently, because they are birds, and I am a mammal, there is little risk to me in this activity.



I started banding birds. I went nuts and banded thousands of them. I used mist nets and traps of all kinds. I caught them, pretended to collect data, put a band on them, and let them go to die an agonizing death in the weeds and bushes.



Birds were really ticking me off. In my yard in Tumwater, I set out millet, cracked corn and sunflower seeds for the squirrels to help them survive the winter. Instead of squirrels, my feeding stating was over run by pesky little juncos. They were eating me out of house and home and driving away all the Douglas and gray squirrels. I started banding them in order to drive their numbers down and make room for mammals. I took out hundreds of juncos with little metal bands.



But much to my surprise, it didn't seem to kill them, at least not right away. I started to recapture the ones that I had already banded. I found this very discouraging. Some individuals were recaptured 5,6, 7 or more times a day, day after day. But by the winters end, the recapture rate began to drop off. However, a new bird popped up for everyone that went missing. These birds seemed to exhibit signs that "real" scientist said proved that they were breeding! ugh. I figured perhaps if the banding didn't kill them to quickly, their offspring would come around to the nets and traps. This they did. By the score young juncos began to visit my feeders. I banded them all. By the summers end, these breeding birds began to disappear, I assume, because they were dying off from the bands.



But then a strange thing happened. The birds that I caught the previous winter, started returning. Lots of them! I can't tell you the level of despair I felt in learning that I didn't kill off the juncos. They hadn't died. They simply left for the summer and returned. ugh. The "real" scientist said that this was winter site fidelity.



But it just goes to show what an odd and stupid thing birds are. The breeding juncos left for the winter only to be replaced by other juncos that breed somewhere else. One population seemed to replace the other. Stupid birds.



I "studied" birds for school out on McChord AFB and Fort Lewis. I banded (killed) thousands of birds there. One bird that I banded was an adult male Purple Finch. My faux science book on bird identification said it was an after second year (ASY) male. It also said it was breeding because of a swollen cloaca. One year to the day later, a bander in Big Sur, California recaptured the bird on breeding ground. The "real" scientist said that the lack of site fidelity was amazing. BS I said. What they didn't know was that I didn't release the bird I caught. I kept it. I drove it to Big Sur and threw it into the net of this other "real" scientist. I showed them.



But the "real" scientist still said it was amazing. Just like the banded Arctic Terns that circumnavigate the globe. Really? Circumnavigate the globe? BS again! We all know the earth is flat. Here is a web page that proves it!


http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms/



If the earth were round bigfoot, sasquatch and yeti would be distributed much differently. Here is a website that talks about that.


http://www.bfro.net/


On a different subject, it is possible that bigfoot is an extraterrestrial;


http://www.halexandria.org/dward359.htm


I diverge. The real blow to my ego was when I heard that Peirce County wanted to put a highway between the bases. Excellent I thought! This could cut down my driving time from Olympia to the tattoo and ammo stores in Spannaway. I could use my "banding" data to show that this would not have any harm on the birdlife there because there was none. What birds were there would soon be gone because I banded them.



Much to my horror, my employer used my date to show that the consulting firm under estimated the bird life there and the highway was never built. What as missed opportunity, because the highway would have killed many more birds that I could have ever accomplish with banding alone. Joke's on them any how as I made up all the data.


I went on to complete my "graduate studies" at my hippie school. I made up data that was missing, and lied about the rest to make my thesis look professional. The "real" scientist said to be careful about how I wrote my thesis because my career would be built upon it. BS again! You can find your own data and make it look great. No one will ever know.



Again, to my horror, another failure on my part. They used my thesis to help "list" a bird under the ESA! They are protecting it! ugh! Again the joke is on them, as I made it all up. All of it.


I have, in fact, given up on banding as it did not come close to killing as many birds as I hoped. I'll go on "studying" them for the rest of my life in hopes that one day I'll find that silver bullet.

Russell


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Russell Rogers
302 N Franklin St
West Chester PA 19380
(360) 808-7197
president at olypen.com
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