Ouch...They Bite!

At this point it should be clear why I gave this post the title that I did. Good timing with the camera on Ram's part.

Well, I haven't added anything in a few days because "Fog" and "WhenAir Strikes Again" pretty much summed up the happenings of the last two weeks. But today has been different! Well, sort of. I still don't think the plane is going to make it because the South side of the island is foggy, but the North side was beautiful today. We (Ryan, Ram, and I) headed out at 9:30 or so this morning to do some adult Kittiwake banding. We caught and banded 7 birds (6 Red-leggeds and 1 black-legged) before heading in to lunch.

Banding is an interesting process. First, one must catch the bird by lowering a small noose made of fishing wire that has been attached to the end of a long pole over the bird's head. If this sounds difficult, that's because it is. Once the bird is successfully noosed, it is pulled down to the ground where the other worker(s) grab it and release it from the noose while trying not to get bit. This seems like an appropriate moment for me to point out to our viewers at home that the bill on a black-legged kittiwake is significantly bigger than that of a red-legged. Of course I was the noose-remover for the one black-legged we caught.

Once safely in hand, the bird is either held out to be banded (as seen in the above photograph), or tucked head first into the holder's armpit (this technique is used for uncooperative birds who tend to bite more). Two bands are put on - one plastic with large numbers, the other metal with small numbers. Once the bands are on, we measure wing length, tail lenth, culmen (bill) length, bill depth, mass, and the length of the head and bill combined. Once the measurements are done, they eagerly fly away and shake off the grime of being handled. The measurements are taken primarily to differentiate between the sexes. Let me just say that we do some similar measurements on kittiwake chicks several times a week. Chicks are far more cooperative than adults. One of the more feisty birds today actually flung the metal band off of its foot into the rocks on the beach before we got a chance to close it around the leg.


All in all, we had a very successful day. A few of the birds gurged (yes, that is a good thing, although disgusting), and both Ram and I bled a little bit. But that's just bound to happen. After all, they do bite. You'll notice that the one that bit me in that first picture still had it's head in a bag at the time. Nonetheless, it managed to inflict some damage.

In closing, I'd like to direct your attention to the weather in these photographs. Notice the sunshine and blue skies...okey, the sky isn't really visible, but trust me, it was blue. We were sitting in a small patch of beautiful summer weather. Meanwhile, today's flight is waiting on weather hold. Sigh. I must say, though, that this was the first time we've really seen the sun in almost a month.