Presque Isle State Park Bird Banding

Another day of sunny windy weather resulted in low success. Three birds before 8 AM and then nothing. Two of the birds were recaptures, a Northern Cardinal and a Black-capped Chickadee.

With nothing new to report, I thought I'd share something from Thursday's banding at Erie Bluffs.

Mist nets are designed to be as invisible as possible. They're fragile and a large bird (e.g. Ruffed Grouse) can fly right through them. I'm alway on the lookout for anything that might cause them serious damage, like this white-tailed deer.



It was about 100 yards away and not too worried about me.

20 minutes later I was checking my nets and saw it browsing along the forest floor.



It was completely unafraid and kept on getting closer to me and the nets.

Here about 15' from me on the other side of the mist net

At this point I was worried that it'd spook and run right through one of the nets, so I stood quietly and watched it approach the net lanes.

Inspecting the net poles

After sniffing the net poles and taking a good look at the nets, it very carefully walked between the nets,



and strolled down the hill without disturbing the nets.



Thank You!