Peregrine Banding

20 May 2004

Manchester, NH

Our first look

Chris Martin talks about NH's peregrine falcons.

Chris Martin and Jim Cowan with the first eyas.

Chris explains that the sex of an eyas can be determined by looking at its legs; the females have large, thick ones. He's brought bands in two different diameters to accomodate this.

Getting the bands ready: there are two, one for each leg. The first is a silver band with a nine-digit, unique identifier which is hard to read from a distance. The other is a colored band with letters and/or numbers that can be read through binoculars.

Bad pencil! The female eyas made her displeasure known, interrupting all Chris's explanations.

Nancy Cowan gets ready to record the band numbers while Jim Cowan handles the eyas.

She's not best pleased about this.

Putting the first band on.

Putting the second band on.

Nancy makes a small blood donation.

Chris returns the female eyas to the carrier while Nancy  holds the male. Jim waits to record the male's band info.

Chris reading the band numbers to Jim for the log book.

Nancy reassures Chris that she's done this sort of thing before.

He's not best pleased, either.

If I'd brought my 35mm camera, these next pictures would have been in focus!

The male eyas is smaller than his sister and has pencil thin legs.