Banding Courses 2025
Bird Banding Opportunities with PSBO 2025!
Bird Banding is a research technique that demands a high level of skill, knowledge, and practice. The Puget Sound Bird Observatory is strongly committed to developing well trained researchers who have sufficient experience and opportunity to use bird banding practices in their research. We take bird bander development very seriously at PSBO!
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If you are interested in becoming part of the research team here at PSBO, please get in touch: contact@pugetsoundbirds.org . There are several ways you can get involved with bird research through banding with the Puget Sound Bird Observatory:
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If you are interested in joining the PSBO research team, or would like to visit to help at the station, and have taken our level one banding course, or have the equivalent experience elsewhere, we would welcome you to come out. If you have worked at another banding station, or have a NABC certification, or any other certification (internationally, BTO, Euring, for example), or have run your own station as a grad student or similar, let's talk, we'd be very happy to meet you!
As A FULL bander...
EXPERIENCE REQUIRED
If you are an academic, researcher, grad student, or have questions about our station, methods, or research, please get in touch here. If you have common interests, wish to propose collaboration, look at data sets we have, discuss projects, or just nerd out on birds with us, get in touch! We'd love to chat with you.
As a researcher or academic...
AFFILIATION AND CV PREFERRED
If you feel like you would like to learn to become a bird bander/researcher, and do not have the equivalent of a full basic level banding course under your belt yet, PSBO would love to help you get started. We offer two sections of our Level One (Beginner Banding) Course in the late summer/early autumn every year. This course is ideal if you have not banded at all, or are just getting started. The course will cover all that you need to join a banding station, with instruction on extracting, banding, aging, and lots of field experience over five days. A perfect seminar for biology students who wish to acquire practical field experience, birders who want to understand the molt process, and anyone else who wants to participate in real field science. Get in touch, and keep watch on the PSBO website for more information. This is a fast-paced course and requires a nimble mind, a reasonably physically fit body, and the willingness to learn and grow in a cooperative team seminar environment.
AS a nEW BANDER...
NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY
Solstice has passed and our thoughts are turning to the 2025 PSBO banding courses!
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This year we are planning to offer one level two banding course (maybe two cohorts if the first fills up quickly) in Spring, and two sections for our beginner course this Autumn. The dates for the courses have not yet been determined, so keep an eye on the website!
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Level 2
Advanced
Banding
This course is the followup for the week long beginner banding course that PSBO and other stations offer.
The main focus of instruction is on giving banders more hands on experience with extraction and processing birds. It picks up and elaborates on aging birds, the molt cycles of North American Birds, including patterns beyond passerines, and targets a more detailed understanding of the Wolfe Ryder Pyle aging system.
Additionally, this course introduces what it takes to set up and run a full banding research station.
As with the level one course, the time will be divided between classroom instruction and practical field work practice.
May, 2025
Morse Wildlife Preserve
Graham, WA.
Three Days of instruction
and fieldwork coaching $450
This course will next be offered in the Spring of 2025. See you then!
Please always feel like you can get in touch and ask questions. Our research team is guaranteed not to bite, and we believe that as a community of scientists, we all grow stronger through collaboration. Please, reach out and connect with us!
Beginner bander class 2025
We will offer one beginner bander course again in 2024. This will occur at the end of the breeding season (Sept. 27, 28, 29, and Oct. 5 and 6, east of Tacoma). This course will teach the basics of beginning as a bander, and all that you'll need to know to join a banding station anywhere in North America. The course is five days long, spread over two weekends, and will teach setting nets, extracting birds, banding and processing birds, and managing data for a banding project. It's a great start if you would like to become a bird banding field researcher and is open to all.
Dates and location: To be determined.
Five Days of Instruction and Fieldwork Coaching: $700 (includes all course materials and the 2nd edition of Peter Pyle's Guidebook)
Class registration begins in Spring!
Cancellation Fee:$150 if cancelled more than a month before the start of the class.$300 if cancelled less than a month before the start of the class.
