Banding Hummingbirds in Edmonds, WA

Hummingbirds are delightful, tiny, winged jewels that most of us in the Pacific Northwest enjoy seeing. I was fortunate to be among the 20-30 people who attended the annual hummingbird banding workshop given by Dan Harville in Edmonds on July 19th.

Dan has been banding hummingbirds for over eleven years and as you might expect, was a wealth of information about these beautiful little birds.  We learned that bird banders are unpaid volunteers who add to our knowledge by capturing, taking measurements and recording information about the birds and placing a band on their legs. 

The birds are sometimes captured months or years later by others and through the band number the data is sent back to the bander and a database adding to our knowledge of bird migration routes, life expectancy and by comparing it to data from past years how the species are changing.  

A most interesting evening!

Measuring the beak length of a young Anna's Hummingbird