Scientific American - USA (2021-03)

BREEDING SEASON
May 16 through August 15
Total number of bandings shown:
30,101,246

FALL MIGRATION

August 16 through November 30

Total number of bandings shown:

22,903,146

SEDENTARY

NONBREEDING PERIOD

December 1 through March 15

Total number of bandings shown:

8,997,254

March 2021, ScientificAmerican.com 57

July 1975

Success Story
Banding data have been essential for recovery
of the American flamingo. Just 5,000 individuals
remained in the wild in North America in 1950
compared with some 70,000 today. Conservation
efforts have led to protection of the bird’s
breeding grounds in the Bahamas.

This spring migration banding

hotspot in Ontario also holds the

banding record in autumn, with a

total of 697,606 individuals banded.

In Ballard County,

Kentucky, 213,334

birds were banded

in winter.

SOURCE: ALLBIRDS CD, OBTAINED FROM USGS BIRD BANDING LABORATORY, JULY 2020;

PATUXENT WILDLIFE RESEARCH CENTER, LAUREL, MD. (

data

)

FROM OUR ARCHIVES

How Birds Branched Out. Kate Wong; November 2020.

scientificamerican.com/magazine/sa

Long-Distance Traveler

A South Polar skua is the leading contender for greatest distance

between banding location and reencounter location. Individual

877-34271 was banded on Shortcut Island, Antarctica, in January 1975

and shot six months later on the southwestern coast of Greenland,

8,929 miles away. (Dashed line shows shortest distance between the

bird’s banding and encounter locations, not necessarily its path.)

364,841 birds total

(representing

six species)

January 1975

Sooty Tern

Brown Noddy

In the vicinity

of Montauk, N.Y.,

555,171 birds

were banded.

Yellow circles mark the location

with most golden-winged warblers

banded per season.

Breeding Hotspot

Since 1960, 364,841 birds have been banded in the vicinity

of Dry Tortugas National Park at the end of the Florida Keys

during the breeding season, between May 16 and August 15.

The sooty tern and brown noddy dominate the species logged

there, with 348,366 and 8,699 individuals banded, respectively.