Tag Archives: waterfowl

Four Square Mile Survey

01/08/2016 Eric Hanson Leave a comment

For the three summer TERM employment opportunities I had with the USFWS, I participated in the four-square-mile breeding waterfowl survey (FSM). These are incredibly fun surveys to do, and I hope to be able to do more of them in the future. I got to canoe down a water basin with a partner and identify wetland birds and waterfowl as we paddled down a lazy stream. I even got to do it from an air boat at the Arrowwood NWR one time. That was a difficult one as the birds were scared up by the boat and started circling the body of water.

I also was able to participate in some rocket netting in North Dakota on a wildlife preserve. It was quite fun, and we didn’t decapitate too many individuals. Many of the birds got banded, but a lot just had to be tallied and let go.

The FSM survey entails recording pairs of breeding pairs of waterfowl or wetland birds and whether or not they are hatch year, or after hatch year (determined by plumage) in a four square mile area. See some images below on what a typical wetland looks like in North Dakota and South Dakota.

ducks — Shovler top right, green wing teal left

Several waterfowl on a wetland in the prairie pothole region — A typical scene for counting breeding pairs of waterfowl on a wetland in the prairie pothole region

Skills

Avian Influenza (AI) Monitoring

01/04/2016 Eric Hanson Leave a comment

When we were in close proximity of the ducks due to rocket netting or trapping, we wanted to get as much information as possible in the shortest amount of time. One of the things we were able to test for was Avian Influenza (AI) with APHIS, the animal and plant health inspection service with the US department of agriculture (USDA). We did pharyngeal and cloacal swabs on a random sampling of the birds being handled. These swabs were put on ice and shipped overnight to the closest USDA testing facility.

Skills

Aluminum and Incloy Waterfowl Leg Banding

01/02/2016 Eric Hanson Leave a comment

Aluminum bands are the go-to for bird banding, but there was a new alloy called incloy that we were putting on larger waterfowl. Even using a banding pliers, it was hard to get them to crimp right without having to adjust the roundness of the band. They always wanted to overlap.

incloy1 — Incloy band and banding pliers

waterfowl banding — Incloy band being placed on a leg

Here you can see a standard aluminum band placed on a leg. The identifying number allows us to track the migration of the birds, but relies on hunters turning in the band. To combat this, the USFWS partnered with Ducks Unlimited are placing green reward bands on only Mallard ducks.

duckbanding — For aluminum bands, a needle nose pliers worked the best

Below, you can see the standard device used to hold the different sizes of bands. This allows us to put a band on any species of waterfowl that will not fall off, even if they are just in their hatch year.

Skills

Benning Style Swim in Traps

01/01/2016 Eric Hanson Leave a comment

Benning style swim in traps are used to sample duck populations. I used them during my time banding ducks. We first baited a site with barley for several days, and once the ducks were acclimated to that site, we erected the trap.

It consists of a vertical mesh net fashioned in an oval shape with the two ends being curved inwards at the bottom to allow the ducks to swim into the barley feed. As the ducks swim outwards to escape, they reach the inset areas and are forced to bridge the gap and hit the other side of the oval wall. The top is also covered to keep out birds of prey.

My team also set out lethal grip traps for mink and raccoons on predatory paths. This helped limit the morbidity of our Benning traps.

Learning Through Life