Week 3! Bird Banding

 As I alluded to last week, I went bird banding! Well, in a way. Bird banding is a practice where an ornithologist or someone who is otherwise certified, places a numbered band/ring on the right leg of a bird. This identification acts as a way to track where this bird has migrated to, if collected again. My role in all this was rather limited this week, but essentially I was there for the ticks. Migratory birds become a public/veterinary health concern because they often give a “free ride” to ticks that are native to where the bird may have migrated from. If you have been following along with my post, I often encounter Ixodes and Dermacentor genus ticks while conducting surveillance. If these birds transported nonnative ticks such as, Amblyomma americanum (Lone Star tick) or Haemaphysalis longicornis (Asian Longhorned tick), then humans and animals alike may be susceptible to varying introduced pathogens.  

Wells Reserve Entrance, Wells, York County, ME

This experience is run by Patrick Keenan, M.S., an ornithologist who works for the Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) in Portland, Maine. While looking into this company I found that Patrick has multiple roles including the Director of the Outreach Program, Director of the River Point Bird Observatory, and the Avinet Research Supplies Manager.  This bird banding program is run weekly at the Wells Reserve in Wells, ME, and is open to the public. On this date there was a plethora of people in attendance everywhere from other employees of Avinet and their family members, people passing by on walking trails, and my co-workers at the VBDL. Before getting into the details of the day, I just wanted to express my gratitude for this field. Before starting this internship I had limited knowledge of how many roles go into vector control for public health. Now three-weeks in, I have been exposed to yet another avenue. Hosts of vectors like ticks can take many different forms, including the birds that are seen flying around above us. To further explain the importance of this work, I will get into explaining what exactly goes into tick surveillance while bird banding. 

Wells Reserve, Wells, York County, ME

 

So the day went as followed, birds fly into nets that are placed in the morning, the lead ornithologist retrieves the birds and places them into “bird bags”, these birds are processed collecting morphological information and placing a band on their right leg, ticks are located and recorded (if any), and then these birds are released. 

Two bird bags in the shade hanging from a tree

This net that was used is very large and has multiple layers that compress the bird when it flies in making it difficult to escape. For that reason, it is of the high importance to consistently survey these nets. At the Wells Reserve there is 7 nets that act as different locations where birds are captured. This work is primarily completed in the morning as the temperature is beginning to rise but is not at its peak for the day. The concern comes with leaving birds in the nets when the temperature is high. Overheating is common if these birds are not taken out of the sun in a timely manner, so part of my morning involved walking along the trails to check on the nets. After we had identified that birds were captured, Patrick would retrieve them and bring them back to our centralized location, a picnic table in the shade, where the data collection could begin. 

Collection net at one of the 7 locations
 

Taking these birds out of the bags Patick would promptly determine the species and place an individualized band on the leg. Patrick also records several metrics like gender, which net it was caught at, wing length, weight, age, and many others. For the VBDL the most important of which are how many ticks are on the bird. Generally all of the ticks found were located around the eyes, and in three collections in particular we were able to retrieve 7 ticks from singular birds.

Patrick Keenan showing 
the molt line on a birds wing

Unlike surveillance methods I have described in previous posts, we did not place these samples into ethanol vials. Primarily, state surveillance involves ethanol vials because the samples will not be used for pathogen testing, but rather county density data. While working on bird banding efforts, the project is actually classified as exotic tick surveillance. We collect these samples in “live” vials that contain Plaster of Paris, keeping the ticks moist and living. Since these samples will be used for pathogen testing, their genetic structure must be preserved, and ethanol often disrupts or breaks up DNA/RNA components. 

 

After the day was complete and all of the nets were taken down, I transported the samples on ice to the lab. I spent most of the rest of my day identifying the species and life stage of the ticks collected. While I neglected to record the data on my personal notebook, I do recall that all of the ticks collected were Ixodes scapularis (deer tick) with the majority being nymphs, and a couple larvae. You may recall that these life stages are very small, so in order to properly determine the species and life stage I had to use a dissection microscope. 

Dissection Microscope at the VBDL

Furthermore, each tick is separately placed into a microtube that is accessioned with the efforts accession number, bird identification number, letter of vial collected in chronological order of birds processed, and additional letter if there was multiple ticks found on the bird.This would look a little like this T092-2397-A or T092-2397-B-A. These were all made up numbers but in order to visualize what I am talking about I thought it might be helpful. 

 

Concluding on the process of exotic tick surveillance, these fully separated samples are placed into a -80° freezer until they are be tested for pathogens. 

 

This was a great experience and exposure to different methods of tick collection. I think that I have been very fortunate that have been exposed to the work of Patrick Keenan and hope that I will be able to assist again. I thought that this post would be an interesting way to explain another project that is ongoing at the VBDL and break apart from writing on my flagging adventures (although it involved a large majority of my week). I plan to continue to inform those interested on the varying projects that are going on as I am exposed to them, potentially with pesticide resistance next week, and greater mosquito involvement into July. Thanks to everyone who has continued to read these posts week to week, and I look forward to sharing again next Friday!

Deer tick nymph under the microscope