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.
Cloacal swabbing to test for AIPharyngeal swabbing
This software is used by most Geographical Information Systems (GIS) professionals. I’ve used this software to measure wetland area, random point intervals for survey work, and georeferencing. If you are interested in seeing a brief introduction to arcMap, please view this short video.
I used arcview on handheld Trimble GPS units to locate points in the field for the belt transect surveys, and also to locate areas for ground cover analysis.
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.
Incloy band and banding pliersIncloy 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.
Standard aluminum bandFor aluminum bands, a needle nose pliers worked the bestA typical banding session
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.
A good picture of the leg band holding device, and us recording data on the birds
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.
Benning Style Swim-in Trap
My team also set out lethal grip traps for mink and raccoons on predatory paths. This helped limit the morbidity of our Benning traps.
