The lush green alpine meadow surrounding the Dunton guard station in the San Juan National Forest buzzed with hummingbirds and avian enthusiasts last Thursday as part of the San Juan Mountain Association's Learning on the Land Program.
The session gave area kids a chance to observe the intricate, tedious process of hummingbird banding from a group of trained Hummingbird Monitoring Network volunteers.
Since 2008, volunteers with the Hummingbird Monitoring Network dedicate several hours to the catching numerous species of hummingbirds in the San Juan National Forest area, collecting their data and releasing them.
There's also a hummingbird monitoring station at Mesa Verde National Park.
Monitoring and banding activities at Dunton started at 6:25 a.m. on a recent Thursday. Two feeders, stocked with a mock nectar made of sugar and water, were stationed in the meadow like tiny booby traps.
Two volunteers, roughly 10 yards away, held strings attached to retractable nets and waited for a few hungry birds to land.
A hummingbird makes contact with the feeder, and the net is released, temporarily trapping the bird for a quick transport to the banding and measuring area inside the guard station.
"The trick is to wait just until it dips down to take a drink from the feeder," said Barb Headley, a longtime Hummingbird Monitoring Network volunteer. "As soon as it sticks its bill in the hole, you drop it."
From there, the birds are gently transported inside the guard station for measuring and banding.
Fitted with lighted magnifying goggles and a pair of tweezers, a volunteer places the tiny, droplet-size tracking band around the leg of each hummingbird. Another volunteer takes measurements and records the data into a log. A third waits to release the tiny bird out of an open window.
"We're finding that some species live fairly long - 12 to 14 years - and they have incredible site fidelity," said Susan Sante, a trainer with the Hummingbird Monitoring Network.
Although there are more than 300 types of hummingbirds, those often caught and studied in the Dunton area are Rufous and Broad-tailed hummingbirds. Occasionally, they find a Calliope or Black-chin.
Eleven-year-old Noah Lederer, of Cortez, who was visiting the site as part of the San Juan Mountain Association, got a close look at the banding process and was able to hold and a release a hummingbird after its measurements were collected.
"It was cool, I never knew that the ends of the wings on hummingbirds have a spike that makes them buzz and I never knew people caught them," he said. "I saw so many cool colors."
While bird-watching is an obvious perk of the process, the main goal of the task is to create a more comprehensive picture of hummingbird behavior. The Hummingbird Monitoring Network has partnered with public land management agencies and volunteer groups to establish monitoring stations across the country to gather more data to better understand the diminutive birds.
