Author Topic: Keeping Track of Bands  (Read 16770 times)

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Offline Kinderchick

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Re: Keeping Track of Bands
« Reply #40 on: May 17, 2012, 20:43 »
...Peregrines can drink water, but they both adults and chicks get their moisture requirements from their food...
For anyone who feeds their pets a raw food diet, this is similar. My cats can drink water if they choose to but usually do not because, like peregrine falcons, they receive their moisture requirements from their raw food. And raw food is certainly what peregrine falcons eat. ;)

Offline The Peregrine Chick

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Re: Keeping Track of Bands
« Reply #39 on: May 17, 2012, 18:37 »
TPC, with it being hot outside and the peregrin parents panting to cool themselves, I have a question about dehydration.  Do these birds drink water or do they get enough liquid from the blood found in their prey?  And what about the little eyases?

Peregrines can drink water, but they both adults and chicks get their moisture requirements from their food.  The chicks are alot cooler than their parents - despite what it looks like, their feathers are quite sparse, so they can cool down quickly - all they need is a little shade under their parents.  At this stage they are still unable to thermoregulate, so Princess or Ivy will be with them at all times - if not on or right beside them, then just outside camera view.

Its warm outside but not really hot per se, or at least not as hot as it will be for the West Winnipeg or Brandon birds when their chicks hatch.  What makes it tough for the adults is that the feathers on their back are dark so they can heat up.  The only way they can cool down is to get into the shade or panting.  Since they can't leave the chicks, panting is their only option.  They also drop their wings and angle their bodies to catch whatever breeze may be available - it flows over the chicks and over the adult's breast and that helps some.

Offline RaptorGal

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Re: Keeping Track of Bands
« Reply #38 on: May 17, 2012, 16:28 »
TPC, with it being hot outside and the peregrin parents panting to cool themselves, I have a question about dehydration.  Do these birds drink water or do they get enough liquid from the blood found in their prey?  And what about the little eyases?

Offline SusanE

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Re: Keeping Track of Bands
« Reply #37 on: May 16, 2012, 21:31 »
TPC, your input is always beyond helpful.  You are so knowledgeable and so generous with that knowledge.  Thank you so much!

Offline The Peregrine Chick

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Re: Keeping Track of Bands
« Reply #36 on: May 16, 2012, 18:47 »
Couple of notes on your findings ...

1.  Only way to be sure of subspecies is genetically even though they have ranges - there are anatum and anatum/tundrius crosses that nest in the tundrius range and I dare say there are probably a couple of tundrius that have nested down south.  So the band colours are assumptions on subspecies based on location caught and banded.  And yes there are "differences" between the peregrines but there is such a range between birds in each subspecies that without the genetics, one can't be sure, its just a best guess.  Having said that, most of the folks banding birds are very accomplished so their best guess is pretty darn good!

2.  Anatum subspecies peregrines are the traditional subspecies in the continental US and in Canada south of the treeline, excluding the small ranges of the non-migratory pealei along the west coast.  Having said that, in the US pretty much all peregrines in captivity were pressed into the recovery breeding programs so there are lots of other subspecies genes in the US and through dispersal into Canada.  The result is that lots of peregrine populations - Saskatchewan west through Canada and the USA are not pure anatum, however they are probably mostly anatum.  The number of birds that don't migrate in the winter in the USA these days could be a indication of these other subspecies but its hard to know without genetically mapping birds that migrate and those that don't.  Given that before the crash anatum peregrines migrated, the reasons behind many not migrating is interesting, maybe just a trend based on availability of prey or the heat island effect or something else entirely.

3.  Just to amend your list, black, black/green and black/red are all anatum birds - the Eastern US birds are anatums or presumed to be.  Red - these are anatum birds as well, the reintroduction program was just for anatum birds.  The tundrius birds were never endangered and there wasn't a breeding program for/with the subspecies specifically.  Undoubtedly, there are tundrius genes in the Canada/US meta-population but the breeding/reintroduction program was for anatum birds in the anatum's traditional range.

Hope this helps

Offline SusanE

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Re: Keeping Track of Bands
« Reply #35 on: May 16, 2012, 10:33 »
Thank you so much, TPC, for your reply.   :)  I may be banging my head against a wall, but I am picking up tidbits here and there and find it so interesting.

It was at the USGS site (http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bbl/homepage/pefaprot.cfm) that I found this list of color bands used based on geographical location as well as sub-species:

Red - Captive bred
Black/red bicolor - Eastern United States
Black/green bicolor - Eastern United States
Blue - Tundra Peregrines
Black/blue bicolor - Tundra or Anatum captured off the breeding grounds or subspecies unknown
Green - Peale's Peregrines
Black - Anatum Peregrines

I did not realize that some eastern Canadian provinces are also using the bi-color bands.  Do you know which ones?

I also found a map showing where the sub-species are located, which explains why California (and probably several western states) use the B/B bands, since the map shows that 90% of the U.S. and Canada have the Anatum sub-species of peregrine.  That map can be found at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peregrine_Falcon)

Thanks again for your help, TPC.  You have filled in many of the blanks.  My hunt continues for more tidbits . . .  8)
« Last Edit: May 16, 2012, 10:35 by SusanE »

Offline birdcamfan

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Re: Keeping Track of Bands
« Reply #34 on: May 15, 2012, 21:42 »
That makes sense. Thanks.

Offline The Peregrine Chick

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Re: Keeping Track of Bands
« Reply #33 on: May 15, 2012, 20:23 »
Something I've always wondered-To you knowledge, has a PF with European bands ever been found in North America? Do you think they could go "over the top" and end up in Canada?

I'm afraid I don't know BCF.  Over the top wouldn't make sense since it is beyond nesting grounds and the wrong direction for migrations - and keep in mind that most European peregrines don't migrate, so no real chance to go over anything.  As for other ways to find their way to North America, storms are amazing things, think of that snowy owl in Hawaii last winter, but I'm afraid I haven't heard of any but who knows.

Sorry, not as clear an answer as you would have liked I'm sure ...

Offline birdcamfan

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Re: Keeping Track of Bands
« Reply #32 on: May 15, 2012, 20:16 »
Something I've always wondered-To you knowledge, has a PF with European bands ever been found in North America? Do you think they could go "over the top" and end up in Canada?

Offline The Peregrine Chick

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Re: Keeping Track of Bands
« Reply #31 on: May 15, 2012, 19:57 »
There is no public database of all FWS/CWS bands for any species of birds that are banded.  The reason for this is that the information is scientific and therefore available only by special permission for scientific purposes.  Heck, I as a project coordinator haven't been able to get access to data that I would like to see, but I am working on it.  When birds are observed, the bander is the person notified.  If the bander shares the information for example with our Project, that's great but they don't have to do it.

However there are some databases online that are managed by other organizations/agencies like the Midwest database - but those are voluntary and they rely on the individual banders to keep the records updated which is alot of effort so there is data missing and out-of-date even there. 

As for the band colours - when the reintroduction programs began in the 1980s, everyone in North America used black bands for wild hatched birds and red bands for captive-bred birds released into the wild.  As more and more birds were produced, some multi-coloured bands  (black over green and black over red) were used so that it increases the numbering options - keep in mind that reading a band the size of the tip of your little finger, you really can't have more than 2 digits top or bottom, its just too hard to read them.  So with the additional colour combinations, you have more the ability to repeat digit combinations and that helps when you have lots of birds - like the Midwest.

As for only using one band (the aluminium FWS/CWS band) it technically is the only band that has to be put on - adding the ID band is the norm because there is an interest in identifying the birds, however, its not really necessary.  Just because you know who a bird is, doesn't change what they do.  If you have a peregrine nesting, you have a peregrine nesting regardless of who or where it came from.  And there are lots of unbanded birds out there - either because the nest couldn't be accessed at banding time or because they come from a nest we know nothing about.  We don't try to catch unbanded birds to put bands on them, that would be unnecessary stress and danger for the birds - and we don't need to know who they are, just that they are.  I don't know where Jules came from but that doesn't diminsh her value or her value to the species recovery.

As for which leg, the US likes to be consistent, but that's because most of the banding is done by a few individuals so they have a preference.  We try to band consistently but sometimes we get it wrong by which time its too late to take them off - and sometimes we do it on purpose so that we have a quick way to identify between individuals - for example with lots of chicks in Winnipeg, its easy to identify chicks from one nest based on which leg we have put their coloured bands on.  In addition we put coloured tape on the aluminium band to help with quick identification in the first few months - and that's not something that's done by everyone but it is done by some.

Hope that helps get you started.

Offline SusanE

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Re: Keeping Track of Bands
« Reply #30 on: May 15, 2012, 08:36 »
I've recently become interested in banding protocol for peregrine falcons in North America, so this thread is most valuable and educational.  I'm aware of the Midwest Peregrine Society's publicly searchable database, but have not found any resource for searching outside of that area, such as Canada or the western and far eastern states in the U.S.  If anyone knows of another database, would you mind sharing the link?

Also, I used to think that all Canadian PFs were banded with black/black VID bands, but recently learned that California placed B/B VID bands on chicks.  It also appears from my limited research that some states (and maybe provinces also) do not use VID bands at all -- just the federal band. 

Another observation is that sometimes the VID band goes on the left leg and sometimes on the right.   ???  Sorry for this rambling post, but if TPC could shed some light on any of this, I would love to learn more! 

Offline bccs

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Re: Keeping Track of Bands
« Reply #29 on: May 14, 2011, 20:58 »
What would we do without bands??

Offline allikat

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Re: Keeping Track of Bands
« Reply #28 on: May 14, 2011, 20:57 »
Info. on bands is quite essential, yes! 

Offline Kinderchick

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Re: Keeping Track of Bands
« Reply #27 on: May 14, 2011, 20:27 »
Yes, I agree with Rose & rcf. Info about bands is very interesting and informative, TPC. Thank you.  :)
« Last Edit: May 15, 2011, 14:00 by Kinderchick »

Offline The Peregrine Chick

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Re: Keeping Track of Bands
« Reply #26 on: May 14, 2011, 17:30 »
Thank you TPC that was the info I was looking for it's another little bit of knowledge to keep me young and old age at bay :) :-*

Thanks from me also.

You both are very welcome - and one is only as old as their band records Rose  ;)