Day 1: May 26, 2016

I woke up on the very first day of my gap year, not tired as usual, but refreshed and ready to bird band.  Normally, bird banding happens early in the morning, so waking up before 6 is not uncommon.  Today, though, my bird mentor John Gerwin (the curator of ornithology at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences) had decided to start really late -- at 8:00 am (not that I complained).  I banded with Olivia, my twin sister; Edward, a fellow birder; and John at Prairie Ridge Ecostation in Raleigh.  Since we chatted a lot before we set up the nets (this happens pretty much any time John's around :) ), we didn't set the banding nets up until about 10.  We set them up around the bird feeders by the outdoor classroom, and thus expected to catch a lot of birds, but our expectations were not met whatsoever.  Maybe it was because we set the nets up so late, or because the birds could see the nets, or because we could have situated the nets better so that the birds were more likely to fly into them, but we only caught 8 birds.  To put that into perspective, on a normal bird banding day, 30 birds is a low number to be expected.  But it was really fun to just be able to hang out with all of my bird people, and two groups of elementary students came and John talked to them about bird banding.   While John was talking to some of the kids, my former teacher Mrs. Blankenship came with her adorable son Felix.  I was really glad to see her, because she taught me IB Theory of Knowledge last year and is pretty awesome.

I untangled four birds from the net: 1 juvenile European Starling (starlings are non-native, ew, and we decided not to band them during this banding), 1 male Brown-headed Cowbird, one Carolina Chickadee, and one Common Grackle. Cowbirds are quite beautiful in a nondescript way, but oh my god they hurt when they bite.  They have conical beaks for cracking seeds, which means they put a lot of force into each chomp.  This bird made me bleed!  He was not happy, poor guy, but he cheered up as soon as he was released.  The only other species that we caught and banded was the House Wren, which was one of our target species.  This banding was part of a project called Neighborhood Nest Watch, where birds commonly found in yards are banded with both the usual aluminum bands (which have unique numbers like Social Security Numbers, but for birds) and with colorful plastic bands, so that people only have to see the bird in order to identify it.  So we put color bands on the chickadees and House Wren that we caught.

Weather anchor Elizabeth Gardner came at about 11:45 and interviewed John about bird banding while we were there.  It was pretty cool to be able to meet her, and she seemed really happy, outdoorsy, and nice.  She interviewed John twice, and all the while us kids were in the background, looking for birds to fly in the net or banding.  Once she had left, we stayed and talked a bit before putting the nets away.

After getting home, I hung out with my four dogs and three cats. (Yes, I have a lot of pets, so if you ever see dog or cat hair on my clothes, don't judge.  It's unavoidable.)  At about 6:45, I went to my best friend Emma's house with my mom and Olivia (she's also my neighbor, which is awesome).  We ate delicious food, my favorite being sweet potato bread studded with walnuts, and chatted.  A while afterward (at about 9 pm), Emma, Olivia, and I went to an anti-House Bill 2 art showing in downtown Raleigh at the Pink Building.  It was quite inspiring, seeing all of the expressions of empathy, endurance, sadness, and anti-hate.  One art piece was a big scroll-looking thing containing the names of every North Carolina government official that signed HB2 in gray on the left side of the piece.  Directly across from every government official's name was the name of a transgender individual that had been a victim of violence or bullying.  Every day the bill is in effect, the artist will cross-stitch a name in red thread, connecting the government officials with the people they harm and fail to represent.  The power of the piece was the blood-red thread I could see connecting the names unalterably.  If (When, hopefully) HB2 stops being in effect, the artist will stop stitching.  That was one of my favorite artworks, though I enjoyed all of them.

Below are pictures of bird banding today:

 Above is John holding a color-banded chickadee

This feisty cowbird was a recap, meaning he 

had already been banded

 A speckled toad that we found by the banding station

Olivia holding a strong and beautiful Common Grackle

Here's a shirt that was on display and for sale at the anti-HB2 art show :) -