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(Photo by Federico Acevedo)
South Floridians can support crucial migratory bird research and help educate the next generation of local conservationists by participating in the “Adopt-A-Net” Fall Migration fundraising campaign to benefit the Cape Florida Banding Station (CFBS), a community science program under the Tropical Audubon Society wing since 2020.
The field research conducted by CFBS and its team of skilled volunteers illuminates the importance of protecting native habitat for migrating songbirds, especially within Miami-Dade County’s urban core.
The CFBS “Adopt-A-Net” effort provides local residents with the opportunity to help replace worn “mist nets” essential to station operations. Sponsors also will be helping celebrate the station’s 20th anniversary and will receive an embroidered badge to mark the notable milestone.
Thousands of songbirds stop at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park (BBCFSP) every spring and fall to refuel as they migrate along the Atlantic Flyway, heading either for North American summering habitats or southern wintering destinations in Central and South America and the Caribbean.
CFBS volunteer community scientists have been banding these neotropical migrants during their Fall Migration (mid-August through early November) since 2002. The station, under the direction of cofounder Michelle Davis, launched its first regular annual Spring Migration banding season in March 2021.
“We’re thrilled to have the station under our program umbrella, and are very happy to be able to provide Michelle with the extra bandwidth to expand CFBS’s crucial work collecting long-term monitoring data,” said Tropical Audubon Society senior conservation director Lauren Jonaitis. “The goal is to ultimately help visiting birds survive and thrive. Our seasonal visitors need to count on our region for food, shelter and fresh water, which can be hard to come by for migrating songbirds, especially in Miami-Dade’s urban areas.”
Why Adopt-A-Net? Florida’s punishing sun weakens and damages the delicate, nylon mist nets needed to gently capture migrating birds for brief examination, documentation, banding and release. To help replace old, worn nets and other equipment essential to CFBS operations, the inaugural “Adopt-A-Net” sponsorship program was hatched in 2021.
Anyone interested in helping to understand the needs of birds on their journey can “adopt” one of the Station’s 36-foot-long mist nets for $150 or commit to a half-net stake for $75.
Funding is crucial for the fall banding season, which runs from Aug. 15 to Nov. 10. Adopt-A-Net sponsors will receive a season-end report and photos highlighting which bird species were discovered in the donor’s “adopted” net, as well as a list of all the bird species banded at the station during the Fall Migration season. Custom signs displaying each sponsor’s name will distinguish “adopted” nets for the duration of the season.
Full net donors who wish to step up to the $1,000 level will be invited for a private tour of the CFBS with Davis, and also receive an original work of art — one of her distinctive 9- by 12-inch field sketch watercolors featuring a Cape Florida bird species.
Davis, who holds a PSM in Environmental Policy and Management from FIU and has a passion for field sketching, said, “Adopt-A-Net was designed to educate the public about the indispensable research we do at the station, while raising funds to support it.”
All Adopt-A-Net sponsors will be recognized on Tropical Audubon Society’s and CFBS’s websites, as well as on the CFBS Blog (sponsors also have the option to remain anonymous).
Bird banding is the practice of capturing a bird, placing a uniquely numbered aluminum band around its leg, noting its age, health, sex, size and weight, and then releasing it. Banding enables a bird to then be identified if it is recaptured. Most important, banding enables researchers to study bird migration patterns, range, how long birds live and the impacts of Climate Change over time.
To safely capture migrating birds, 23 mist nets are set out at BBCFSP in an area covering approximately eight acres within a restored hardwood hammock. The birds who fly into the nets are gently removed, banded and quickly released.
The data CFBS gathers helps scientists understand songbird migration patterns and underscores the importance of the park’s restored native hardwood hammock to these migrants. Ideally located in one of the state’s most valuable Important Bird Areas (IBA) for migratory birds, the site yields crucial data that has been informing researchers, the public and civic leaders for two decades.
Since its 2002 founding, the CFBS has operated with a federal master banding permit, state banding permit and park research permit, and has banded more than 40,000 birds representing 119 species, with an average of 1,900 birds banded every fall. Neotropical migrant warblers, vireos, thrushes, buntings, catbirds and flycatchers make up the majority of the species banded.
For more information about the Cape Florida Banding Station visit the website:
https://tropicalaudubon.org/cape-florida-banding-station.
