If you should get close enough to see a band, here's how to break it down.
1. There should be two bands, one on each leg. One will be the USFWS/CWS band (silver in Canada, purple/red-purple in the US Midwest) the other is a coloured ID band and there are four colour combinations - black, red, black over green and black over red. Manitoba has only used the black (wild-hatched) and red (captive-bred) bands. Other jurisdicutions use the bi-coloured bands. If you can see which leg has which coloured band, that can be a great place to start.
2. If you see the USFWS/CWS aluminium band, don't bother trying to read the number they are embosed so it virtually impossible to read all 9 digits.
3. If you can see the coloured band, first note the colour(s), on the bicolours, which colour is at the top, which one is on the bottom.
4. The numbers/letters on the coloured band are in white, but on older birds, the white has worn off some so it may get difficult to read. They can also be vertical or horizontal on the band and on some bands there will be a white line between the digits.
Best way to start is just to look and pay attention to the shapes of the digits/letters. The band is attached using rivets so there will be a vertical "seam" and sometimes it is hard to tell what's a digit/letter and what is the seam. So look for shapes, parts of shapes -best to draw (rather than write) them. Bands can get put on upside down so a horizontal shape may not look like an R or a K and upside down vertical numbers can drive you crazy trying to identify them. With a shape and the colours, we can potentially narrow down the field some and then you can start "looking" for specific letters or numbers. Keep in mind, that generally you only have a series of split seconds when you will "see" the band number itself, so if you just try to remember rather than read, I have found its easier and more successful.
Given the height of the buildings around the McKenzie Seeds Building, yes it is possible on some of them to get a look at the band number using just binoculars. Not easy, but possible
