YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — This week, Yellowstone National Park (YNP) posted a video to Facebook highlighting its bird banding station, which is expanding the understanding of breeding songbirds within the Park.
According to Yellowstone Forever (YF), the organization that supports YNP’s bird banding program, many songbird species are declining or imperiled across North America due to habitat loss or fragmentation, changing climate and fire regimes and invasive species.
“Recent estimates suggest that we have lost as many as 3.2 billion songbirds since the 1970s,” YF writes on its website.
The video posted by YNP and narrated by YNP senior bird biologist David Haines confirms that over the course of a breeding season, hundreds of birds will be captured and given uniquely identifiable bands. Each bird’s age, sex, breeding condition and health is recorded before they are released.
By capturing in consecutive years, YNP is able to track demographic trends like reproductive success and annual survival rates, as well as assess threats that could impact individual species. These findings are then used to inform future management strategies, Haines says.
According to Haines, the data captured during a breeding season is submitted to the Institute for Bird Populations to contribute to regional, national and continent-wide assessments of bird populations.
According to YF, records of bird sightings have been kept in the Park since its establishment in 1872. These records document nearly 300 species of birds to date, including raptors, songbirds, shorebirds and waterfowl. The current bird banding program has been operating since 2018, located in a willow-lined riparian corridor on the northern range.
YF reports that the most commonly captured species in the breeding season are the yellow warbler and warbling vireo.
