"Bracelets" for Red-tailed Tropicbirds

adult Red-tailed Tropicbird

The left-hand picture shows a Red-tailed Tropicbird chick that's grown up and ready to fly away from Midway Atoll to start its own life.  It's at what we call the "fully feathered chick, or FFC" stage.  But before it flies away, the US Fish and Wildlife Service would like to put a "bracelet" on it.

RTTR bands, ready for use

The bracelet is a small metal ring called a "band" with a number.  Each band has a different number; so each bird that gets a band has its own number.  This identifies the bird.  When the FFC grows up, and returns to Midway, we'll know who it is.  If it mates, lays an egg, and raises its own chick, we'll have a record of the family...sort of a "family tree."

Do you see what looks like a large safety pin in the picture, to the right of the metal bands?  That's actually a clip that came off a fishing float, which was found as marine debris on one of Midway's beaches.  We pretended the clip was an RTTR's leg, and learned how to band Tropicbirds.  In this series of pictures, you can see how it's done:

1) A bird band is in the front position in the special, banding pliers.

2) The pliers are squeezed to close the band around the "bird leg."

3) The bird band is rotated.

4) The band is moved to the pliers' back position; the pliers are squeezed...

5) ... closing the band and making it round.

6) The band is on the "bird leg!"

Answers for "ACTIVITY: Laysan Ducks #2 -- Who's Who"

Challenge yourself to identify the bands of some Laysan Ducks in the "ACTIVITY: Laysan Ducks #2 -- Who's Who," in FOAM's menu bar above, and then check the answers in this data table.

When I looked up these bands in Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge's data base, I found out two interesting pieces of information--

• The duck with the WF band is noted as having a "big puka left foot."  ("Puka" is the Hawaiian word for hole.  Perhaps WF got the puka in its foot pad when it stepped on a really sharp Nohu thorn!

• RC, the duck I couldn't tell whether it was a male or female, is a male.

Some of these bands were really hard to see.  The hardest one for me to see was BRT.  At first I thought it was BKT, but I couldn't find that code in the data base.  Next time I saw that duck, I looked more closely and realized it must be brown, not black.  When I looked for BRT in the data base, it was there!  If you got at least half of these bands correct, you're on your way to being a wildlife scientist!

Answers for "ACTIVITY: Laysan Ducks #1 -- Bands"

photo by Kittipong Janthasang

No peeking at these answers until you try the "ACTIVITY: Laysan Ducks #1 --  Bands" in FOAM's top menu bar.  It's fun!

21. O+                                31. GN/WG
22. Too worn to read!        32. Y4
23. GYJ                             33. GY1
24. GNX1                          34. GNY
25. WM6                           35. W/2MG
26. B/2WG                        36. BY$
27. GN/2WG                     37. YX>
28. O/BKG                        38. OU
29. BYR                            39. GYK
30. GNX7    

Some of these codes are hard; don't worry if you missed some.  In the next few days FOAM will have some pictures of Laysan Ducks with bands.  You can practice being a wildlife scientist by trying to read bands on real ducks!

Auntie Moana's Chick -- 5/29/10

left: Aunty Moana, right: Kanoa; middle: their chick

Here they are: pictures of my `ohana!  I'm on the left, my partner Kanoa is on the right, and of course that's our chick in the middle.  We haven't named him yet; we'll wait until he fledges.  ("Fledges" means a bird loses his down and gets regular feathers, and can fly.)
     The reason why we wait on naming our chick is cuz... well, every time we lay an egg, Kanoa and I wait...because sometimes our chick passes away before it fledges...and that's very sad. I'll try and talk more about that in another post..

Aunty Moana

Anyway, here's how it works; the US Fish and Wildlife Service runs our Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. They can't study every single one of us birds on the whole island; so what they do is measure out smaller sections of the island and study all the birds of a particular kind that are in that section. Try look at "Midway Map" tab on the top menu bar of this blog. You'll see the red-numbered areas are for Red-tailed Tropicbirds: 1, 7 and 8.  Albatross areas are in green; Black-footed in B1, B7 and B8, and we Laysan have L7 and L10.
     I live in L10, and I love it here; you can see on the map that it's right in town, not far from the National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center. I know everything that's going on. Many of my friends say I'm nīele (nosy, a busybody), but I don't think so.  Here's a close-up of me, with band F344 on my right leg.  Can you see the aluminum band on my left leg?  You don't get that until you're just about ready to fledge.

When our L10 neighborhood was first set up, the biologists put bird bands on all us Laysans that were in here. My band is F344; nice, huh? Every year since then, when Kanoa and I set up a nest, the biologists come around and put a stake in the ground near our nest. There were a lot of nests in L10 this year; our nest was #79. Then the scientists know that the egg in that nest, and the chick that hatches out of it, is ours! When he was old enough, they put band P303 on our chick; here's a picture of him taken about a week ago, on May 29; cute, ya?!  Lotsa down; the biologists call it the "DFC, downy feathered chick" stage.

So I'm F344 and our chick is P303. Kanoa and I are working hard to keep him alive and healthy. Here's a picture of me feeding the little guy.  I'll try and post lotsa pictures of him; that way, all you folks following this blog can see my chick grow up!

Aunty Moana feeding her chick, #P303

Laysan Albatross Chick "Jewelry"

Hi Barb! I'm sorry I've missed you. Right now I'm texting you from the North Pacific Ocean, thousands of miles away from Midway. Yes, I am up here finding ono kine (good) seafood for me and my chick.
But I thought our FOAM blog followers might want to see this picture I have of a young Laysan Albatross chick (see the fluffy down at the top of its leg.) The plastic, "aux" band (for "auxiliary," meaning extra) on its left leg will be on just until the bird gets all its non-downy, sturdy, adult feathers. The aux band is easy to see and makes it simple for you volunteers to identify each chick...to know who survives and who doesn't. So far, this chick #P300 is alive and well in LAAL plot #L10, where I live. The metal band on the right leg will stay on the bird its whole life, and will identify it wherever it travels. Pretty important "jewelry," right?!