A 16-year-old highschool scholar from Appleby Faculty shares his story and love of chook banding.
16-year-old highschool scholar Sam Lewis is for the birds – actually. That is why the Appleby Faculty scholar loves chook banding.
Whereas attending Fern Hill Elementary Faculty in Oakville, Sam Lewis found a chook banding station by means of a discipline research program, which opened his eyes to a brand new world of prospects.
“The entire tactile nature of it was actually sort of one thing I’d’ve by no means actually anticipated,” mentioned Lewis. “I had no thought chook banding existed beforehand, however dealing with one thing so up shut and private like that was actually particular and from there, I wished to pursue it additional, and I suppose I positively did.”
“I used to be given the chance to launch a Blue Jay, which was the primary time I ever dealt with a chook in anyway and it was instantly fairly placing.”
Lewis bought concerned as a volunteer at a chook banding station and is on his approach to turning into a licensed Ontario chook bander. His love for chook banding takes early mornings and lengthy hours with “customary protocol” taking as much as six hours on the station.
Fowl banding is a knowledge assortment technique used to establish and observe totally different chook species for analysis functions. To start a chook banding session, Lewis and his group open nets at dawn and conduct “web checks,” extracting any birds which might be caught. When a chook is seen within the web, it is delivered to the station for processing.
A novel nine-digit band is assigned and positioned on the chook so it may be recognized whether it is caught once more. The chook’s age and {sex} are recognized if attainable, and wing measurements, mass, and the quantity of fats and muscle are recorded. As soon as processed, the birds are launched.
When the birds are caught once more, the nine-digit code permits banders to establish them and collect traits and information.
In accordance with Lewis, the information he and his group accumulate is positioned into a world database that connects hundreds of thousands of information factors between hundreds of various chook observatories.
“That can be utilized in all types of manners whether or not it is conservation analysis or the rest from an unlimited array of analysis, and there is additionally totally different sorts of banding, what I’ve simply described is migration monitoring,” mentioned Lewis.
Lewis says he’s very obsessed with biology and is seeking to research it additional when he goes off to College. “I am actually inquisitive about doing much more analysis, I am taking a handful of analysis programs in highschool proper now and thus far they’ve actually me,” he mentioned.
Whereas his plans post-secondary stay unconfirmed, Lewis is devoted to persevering with his work in chook banding and organic analysis.
