Racks & Reels


Birding with cannons and a redneck wedding



There are lots of ways to spend the weekend on the coast. On Saturday some folks had a party to celebrate a wedding. Others came down with some cannons and a net to capture birds as part of a research project. Here is a story about that work.

red knot in hand ii.jpg

The research is being done on the red knot, a robin-sized bird that migrates from the Canadian Artic to the Southern tip of South America and back each year. A small population either winters in Texas or passes through. The researchers want to find out what the birds are doing and why. The hope is that by understanding them, they can learn about what is happening with all shore birds. Seventy percent are on the decline.

Red neck wedding.jpg

I spent Saturday with the folks who were capturing and tagging the birds. It basically involves tying a net to three metal rods, putting the rods into cannons, hiding the whole set up in the sand, playing some bird calls and then trying to usher the birds into the capture area. Once there, the canons are fired, the metal rods fly out pulling the net over the birds. The first photo is from the set up.

The crazy part is holding birds while attaching the bands. The birds are these little balls of fluff with a beating heart you can feel and toothpick thick bones. They mostly just stare while they are held.  But once you release them they can fly all the way to South America.

While the researchers were looking for birds to capture, these folks we having a grand time. Although the girls in the bikinis did look a bit cold.

Categories: recreation

Colin McDonald

Colin McDonald

2 Responses

  1. Colin McDonald says:

    Yup that’s me. Thank you for the e-mail. Here is the link. I apologize that it loads so slowly.

    The next trip will down the Rio Grande this spring.


  2. Mongo _ says:

    Colin, sounds like a great way to spend a weekend! Are you the fellow that took the kayak all down the Texas coast? I was reading that journal and lost track of it with the site revisions – any idea where it can be found?