One of nature’s tiniest birds will be featured at the Tennessee Springville, Tennessee Wildlife Refuge Center next month. Visitor Services Manager, Joan Stevens, at The Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge said, “Who doesn’t love seeing a tiny hummingbird up-close, it’s pretty awesome.”
Federally Licensed Master Bander Cynthia Routledge from the Southeast Avian Research Center will lead band demonstrations on the tiny birds to inform people about the information garnered from the application process. Stevens says the take home message should impart knowledge regarding the importance of the birds environmental surroundings.
“Not using certain pesticides can help these birds and being aware of what we do to our environment and it affects these tiny little jewels.” Stevens said.
According to Stevens the only hummingbird in this region east of the Mississippi River is the Ruby-throated Hummingbird. While the birds are easily caught by attaching a trap to a feeder, the banding process is much more complicated and takes extensive training.
The bands provide each bird a social security number of sorts and the information collected from them will go into a central database for all North American bird banding information. Using specially designed tools, Routledge will band each captured hummingbird, then take a series of other measurements to determine the age and sex of the hummingbird before releasing the bird.
Routledge will present a program on hummingbirds, at 11 a.m. and at 2 p.m. on Saturday, August 8th at the refuge headquarters and visitor center located at 1371 Wildlife Drive in Springville.
