Just watched the youtube video of the Elk River Energy "Banding Day for Dot's Chicks". Tracy, if you get the chance to look at it I'm hoping that you'll respond with how you feel they handled the chicks there. If you would call the jerk that pulled them out of the nest a "jerk"?? or would you say what he did was perfectly fine?? If you say no comment I'll understand 
I watched the video twice and although not a "pretty" exit, the gentleman who retrieved the chicks did an quick efficient job. As to catching them by their feet, of all their body parts, those are the strongest - catching them by a wing could have caused damage, I try to avoid wings at banding at all costs. At this age, the chicks lash out with their feet so avoiding them is often not an option and he may have had them by the feet but they certainly had him as well (that's experience speaking). If you watch the video, it takes him 58 seconds to get all four chicks out of that box and into in the cherrypicker and while certainly don't a dignified exit for three of them, "pretty" isn't a requirement, safe and quick is. And watching the video, the chicks were never in danger, unhappy, but not in danger.
I can say that I wouldn't want to have to try to retrieve those chicks from that box, its not an easy angle and its a long box. I'd have probably tried to design a box so that such an awkward angle wasn't needed at banding. On the other side of the coin, the Elk River birds have had good success here, so perhaps 58 seconds of awkward exit at banding is an equitable trade-off?
