This is a very old Swamp Sparrow!

Scott and Emily left for their last net check of the morning, to be combined with taking the nets down. This usually goes quickly, for by 11 or 11:30am, there aren’t as many birds in the nets. From the Pavilion, I could see that the group at net 4 was taking an unusually long time, so I decided to walk over and see what the trouble was.

A poor Swamp Sparrow, already sporting a band, had gotten himself rather twisted and tangled in the net. Scott worked carefully and methodically to free the bird and place him in a bag for transport.

Back at the banding station, Emily removed him from the bag and read the band number to Scott. I wrote the other data, wing length, tail length, etc, while Scott searched previous year’s records for this bird.

He was originally banded here at Audubon on May 17, 2007. At that time, he was judged to be ASY – after second year. Some sources say that Swamp Sparrows live “up to 6 years.”

Carry on, old man!

Banding Demonstrations continue May 14th and 21st.  Come on down!  For more info, click –> here.