Sunday, May 23, 2010

Banded Bananaquits!

If you're still laughing about the title, check out the wiki page.

In my continuing effort to figure out which organization to contact for the West Indies (re: Black-whiskered Vireo that might not be through USGS), I found this: Bananaquit info by Chipper Woods Bird Observatory, hosted by Wild Birds Unlimited. It's not about banding per se, but the photos and discussion are pretty exciting.

Of note, under "Banding Recoveries" it mentions this:
Between 1955 and 2000, 12,074 Bananaquits were banded. A 2003 survey in the Caribbean (Jamaica, Mexico and Puerto Rico) to detect resident and migratory birds infected with West Nile Virus found that Bananaquits do harbor the West Nile Virus (Dupuis II et al. 2003).

If you should recover a banded Bananaquit, please report the band number to the Bird Banding Lab by calling 1-800-327-BAND.


...so not only did the Bananaquit banding in this case allow regular measurements and physiological data to be collected, it also added to the knowledge of West Nile Virus carriers. Pretty neat stuff.

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