An Unexpected Meeting Made Possible by Bird Banding

Banding is a critically important tool scientists use in bird conservation. Through the U.S. Geological Survey Bird Banding Laboratory program, biologists gain valuable insights into birds’ natural histories, including population size, age structure, migration routes, and movement patterns. With many banding programs throughout the country, one of the best-known focuses on Piping Plover conservation. Scientists monitor the birds through three separate banding programs based on their breeding locations. 

Piping Plover Background

Atlantic population:  With a breeding range stretching along the east coast from North Carolina all the way up into Maine, this population has the most breeding pairs of Piping Plover. Some pairs travel as far as Canada to breed and raise their families in Quebec and Newfoundland.

Great Plains population:  Occurring from Nebraska up through North and South Dakota and into the Canadian provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, this is the second largest population of Piping Plovers and mostly follows along the path of the Missouri River and its tributaries.

Great Lakes population: This is the most endangered population of Piping Plovers, with scattered breeding pairs throughout Michigan, although recently some pairs have spread to other states.

Regardless of their breeding location, all Piping Plovers in the country migrate south and spend the winter along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts from the Carolinas through Texas. Each winter, Piping Plovers from all three populations congregate along their preferred beaches.

Until the 1990s, when the Piping Plover Banding Program was established, scientists did not know where the birds wintering on Florida’s beaches bred.

How Does Bird Banding Work?

Ornithologists and other scientists studying birds typically capture them as chicks and apply a combination of bands and flags on one or both legs that is specific to the individual in that study. Piping Plovers get a colored band or flag at the top of one of their legs, and the color of this band or flag is specific to their breeding location: Orange for the Great Lakes population, yellow for the Great Plains, and green for the Atlantic population.

Realizing a Personal Connection

Where I work in the eastern Florida Panhandle, we see the Great Lakes Piping Plovers with their orange bands fairly often, but it is very rare to see a banded bird from one of the other populations. While surveying at Flag Island Critical Wildlife Area in early January, I saw a Piping Plover with a yellow flag, indicating it was a member of the Great Plains population. I immediately got out my camera and took photos to document its presence here in Florida and to help me read the code on its flag more easily. Through my photographs, I determined that the code on the flag read 62Z.

After reporting the banded bird online with the Banded Bird Laboratory, I eagerly awaited a reply with details about the bird's origins. Turns out, the bird was banded as a chick on Lake Sakakawea in North Dakota in July of 2016. Two things stood out to me: one, the bird was at least 9 years old. Considering that the average life span of Piping Plovers is 5-7 years, this was an old bird.

Even more remarkable was that it hatched on Lake Sakakawea, an area where I monitored Piping Plovers during the summer of 2022. I eventually learned that this particular bird hatched on a group of islands just west of the Lake Audubon Causeway, which separates Lake Audubon from Lake Sakakawea.

At that point, I realized the connection that I shared with this Piping Plover. Although I can’t confirm if I ever saw this particular bird while I was working in North Dakota, I know for sure that I walked every foot of the island where it was hatched six years before I arrived. Because most Piping Plovers nest in the same general area where they hatched, I might have also seen this bird’s siblings nesting on those islands that I surveyed in 2022.

Additionally, it’s a pretty cool coincidence that we have both traveled so far since leaving North Dakota, and we both ended up on a little sandbar in the Florida Panhandle this past January. After fledging from its nest, this Piping Plover has surely made countless migrations from the northern Great Plains down to the Atlantic or Gulf coasts and back.

As for me, after leaving North Dakota, I worked different seasonal jobs in Utah, southern Florida, Wisconsin, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, and now I'm up in northern Florida. We have both traveled thousands of miles since first leaving North Dakota, and I definitely enjoyed meeting that Piping Plover on that island in January.

Why is Banding Important?

Bird banding is one of the most important tools that scientists can use to study birds. Banding has significantly improved our knowledge in several ways, such as the population dynamics of certain species and the age classes and life spans of others. However, the importance of banding is most evident in our understanding of bird movements and migration patterns. It’s one thing to see that a beach has Piping Plovers nesting on it each year, but it is even more helpful to know that the same birds are coming back to that spot each year.

Similarly, it is good to know that some Piping Plovers spend the winter in the Florida Panhandle each year. But knowing that almost all of these birds come from the Great Lakes population can do a lot more to help us understand and conserve that species, not just at their breeding and wintering locations, but also at the points in between.

So, the next time you see some birds out on the beach, be sure to look for bands. By submitting a sighting report to the Banded Bird Laboratory, you will not only find out more information about that individual, but you will also be assisting with the conservation of that species. Who knows, maybe you will even have your own reunion with a banded bird at some point, just like I did earlier this year.