Have you looked at something in nature and just thought “how?” Maybe the elementary school volcano project as a kid really held your interest. Are you passionate about protecting our planet and keeping it pollution free? If any of this sounds like you, we think you’re going to love the Natural Sciences Program here at IU Kokomo!
Description of the video:
Bird Banding Transcript
DA = Descriptive Audio
[DA - It’s early morning and dark. You can see silhouettes of people working against the morning sky as the sun is coming up.]
[DA - Bryan Kay explains what they are doing]
We're doing bird banding, which involves setting up things called mist nets.
[DA – Joseph Hackett continues the description of what is happening]
We have to drive the poles down about 12 inches or so, you attach the net to that side. You move it across. And then until it's fairly tight and you drive to the next pull down 12 inches, and then you can start attaching all the nets to the poles and extending them up so that they're the right height.
[DA - Bryan Kay explains what they are doing standing in front of a wooded area.]
They're very fine nets that the birds can't see. And they'll fly into them, get caught, and then it allows us to size them, sex them, check out all their preliminary data points basically, and put a put a band, which is like a little bracelet on their ankle, I guess, that would allow us to then track them if they're caught again in the future somewhere else.
[DA – Dr. Lina Rifai asks the class what bird she is holding before cutting to her interview standing in a grassy opening.]
So can you guys tell me what this is? OK, cardinal. Now... I think a lot of times what's really exciting just to be this close to a bird, because we've been spending a lot of time looking at them far away and trying to see the color, see the personality of the birds, too, like cardinals that just like to clamp down on your finger and get some skin and really hurt you.
[DA - Bryan Kay explains what they are doing standing in front of a wooded area.]
So far, we've caught a female northern cardinal and a male white breasted nuthatch. You can kind of get the detail of the wing patterns a little bit more than you can from the book or from viewing from a distance.
[DA – Oriana Barnard is interviewed in front of a wooded area.]
It's really nice having like, these.... being able... in close, like you're getting up close to the bird. You're not just reading about it, because I know in high schools it's a lot of just like, books and stuff. You have a lot of the experience of actually seeing things up close, getting that, "being out in the field" work a lot more, which is very interesting.
[DA – Dr. Lina Rifai continues her interview]
We're going to get to experience what it's like, and for example, today is a slow day and that's part of research. Sometimes things go fast. Other times you sit there for an hour or two and nothing happens. The closer you are, the more real it is.
Not that they're not real when you look at them, but you get to see some of the personality. So I think that's part of it. And in general, I think they get a more personal connection to it. And it doesn't become just this thing we see far away through binoculars.
[DA – Dr. Lina Rifai assists a student letting a bird fly away]
One, two and three. Oh, doesn't... she doesn't know yet that she's free.
[The IU Kokomo logo pops up on the screen with the text visit dot iuk dot edu under the logo.]