The clouds momentarily vanished, allowing the sunshine to shine down as I strolled from the Earth Day Village in front of Poe Library to Station 16 on Sullivan’s Island. It was April 22, and I was headed to Sullivan’s Island’s first annual Earth Day Bird Banding Station. A group of approximately 12 visitors had gathered at the entrance of the trail, canopied by forest trees, eagerly waiting for the bird banding events to begin.
The Sullivan’s Island Bird Banding Station belongs to Carolina Avian Research and Education, a nonprofit organization that provides sanctuary to birds with special needs. Rare and endangered birds are brought from all over the world to be studied and bred in this sanctuary, and the scientific research and findings are shared with other avian facilities. Sullivan's Island Bird Banding is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that studies migratory birds from a long-term monitoring station on protected land. Many birds use the island as an overwintering ground, breeding ground or migration stopover.
Bird Banding tool kit at the Sullivan's Island first annual Bird Banding Earth Day demonstration
Earth Day provided local residents and visitors with an excellent opportunity to observe and participate in the vital scientific research being performed on the island.
Sarah Harper checking the feather patterns on a Graycat bird, holding the GRCA in a bander's grip
The director of the Bird Banding Station, Sarah Harper, has operated the station since 2020 and also is the president of the nonprofit. She earned her bachelor’s in biology at the College of Charleston and her master’s in biology at The Citadel. She began bird banding on Sullivan’s Island as a teenager, volunteering with Will Post for The Charleston Museum’s activities at Dill Plantation.
Bird banding is a popular monitoring technique commonly utilized by researchers and conservationists in the field of ornithology. It is most commonly used to capture, measure and mark wild birds, providing scientists with population demographics, population density, productivity and survival rates.
At Sullivan’s Island’s First Annual Earth Day, a select number of visitors were allowed to observe and assist in a bird banding demonstration. I was led off the wooden boardwalk, climbed over a bench and found myself on a sandy path in the Maritime Forest.
The first step in the bird banding process is to set up the mist net, and the location of these study sites can change daily. Mist nets create an almost invisible barrier and are commonly used to capture birds in flight. The group learned through
Mist Net set up in the Maritime Forest
observation how to properly set the net by spacing out the loops. As a bird gently hits the net, it becomes entangled in the net pocket, where it stays until a bird bander or volunteer extracts it. Each bird is placed in a soft cloth bag to reduce stress, then it is brought back to the bird banding table.
As Harper demonstrated how to properly use a bander’s grip on a bird, one of the Earth Day volunteers approached the group carrying a small cloth bag and announced that there was going to be a special Earth Day bird banding demonstration featuring a genuine bird. The enthusiasm in the group quickly became exuberance.
Harper identified the bird as a gray catbird, a migratory species that uses Sullivan’s Island as a rest stop during its journey. Each bird is banded with a unique aluminum alloy band of a specific size for its species, and additional information such as the mist net number and the date and time of banding is collected for data analysis. The data, which is
Sarah Harper demonstrating how to properly assemble a mist net
transmitted to the federal database, includes information on feather molt, brood patch and fat storage and can be used to track population demographics and measure the health of bird species.
The Sullivan’s Island Bird Banding Station provides a unique opportunity for visitors to learn about scientific research in their local community and observe firsthand the critical work being done to protect and conserve bird populations. With more than 80 identified bird species in the Maritime Forest, the area is a vital national birding station and a crucial site for collecting data. Many neotropical migrant species use the island to rest and refuel during their annual journey, making the biodiverse ecosystems of Sullivan’s Island a critical nesting habitat.
