By Grant SegallOn a frosty morning in the Laurel Highlands, Luke DeGroote spots a banded, slate-colored junco wriggling in a barely visible net.“You got yourself real tangled,” says DeGroote. He gently works the bird loose, bags it and brings the flapping bag into a lab to be banded – marked w ith an identifying tag around the leg that helps to record and study the bird and its movements.There Annie Lindsay takes out the junco. She sees that she had banded and inspected it just 90 minutes earlier. There’s no need to do either again. So she slides a small window open and sets the bird free.The Richard P. Mellon Avian Research Center at Powdermill is one of the world’s leaders in studying and protecting the dwindling ranks of birds. It has banded birds year-round since 1961, the longest such streak in North America, with more than 830,000 birds from about 190 species.Powdermill’s staff and collaborators have published findings in top journals about bird migrations, diets, diseases and more. They have documented the mixed results of adaptations to changing climates and shrinking habitats. Powdermill also uses the continent’s oldest bird tunnel, opened in 2010, to test birds’ attraction to reflections in glass.“Birds are astonishing and beautiful,” says DeGroote, an avian research scientist. Annie Lindsay has found this tufted titmouse in a net at Powdermill Avian Research Center. Photo by Grant Segall.Consider a scarlet tanager’s brilliant coat or a wood thrush’s self-harmonies. Watch a hawk’s stately glide or hummingbird’s furious hover. Did you know a blackpoll warbler can fly nonstop for three days and 1,800 miles? But birds are here for a reason.“Birds play an important role in the ecosystem,” says DeGroote, “like dispersing seeds and eating insects.”Can they keep it up? A 2019 study showed North America with nearly 30% fewer breeding birds than in 1970. And a 2016 study rated more than 37% of the continent’s 1,154 species at risk.PARC in a parkPowdermill Avian Research Center occupies 25 of the 2,200 mostly wooded, hilly acres of the Powdermill Nature Reserve in southeastern Westmoreland County’s Cook Township. The reserve is the Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s environmental field station, founded in 1956 by an aptly named museum director, M. Graham Netting. Near the avian center, the Powdermill Nature Reserve has made important findings about reptiles, amphibians and other species.A cedar waxwing awaits banding at Powdermill Avian Research Center. Photo courtesy of Blaine Carnes.The avian center has four small buildings and about 70 nets in fields, wetlands and other habitats. It has three full-time employees, three seasonals, about 15 volunteers and outsize influence.Among its accomplishments, Powdermill’s staff has developed a commonly used database of birds and common methods for telling their ages and genders. It has put transmitters on some birds and helped set up 180 tracking stations in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. It has discovered a rare bigender bird.Banding and examiningIn all but extreme weather, Powdermill’s staff unfurls nets half an hour before sunrise, checks them every 30 to 40 minutes to minimize any bird’s wait, and refurls them after six hours. Lindsay, Powdermill’s banding manager, works with each bird in the lab for a minute, weighing it, measuring it, banding it and inspecting traces of fat beneath its feathers and translucent skin. From some species, she also plucks two feathers or gathers fecal samples for studies done elsewhere.Birds banded at Powdermill have been found as far away as Peru. And more than 200 birds banded elsewhere have turned up here.Fatal attractionThe U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says that more than 1 billion birds per year crash into glass that reflects foliage or sky. Powdermill’s crew tests panes etched, stippled or otherwise treated to obscure reflections. It posts the panes outside the netted end of its 25-foot tunnel, which can be rotated for different lighting.In Pittsburgh, safe glass shields the Natural History Museum, National Aviary, Frick Environmental Center and the new patient tower under construction at UPMC Presbyterian. Some other cities require it.Measuring a hooded warbler wing at Powdermill. Photo courtesy of Powdermill Nature Reserve.DeGroote co-founded BirdSafe Pittsburgh, which, among other efforts, checks the city for victims during migration seasons. Injured birds are rehabilitated, and dead ones go to the museum’s research collection.What can you do?People who want to help birds can report sightings at ebird. They can make their windows safe. They can protect migrating birds by shutting off outdoor and indoor lights from midnight to 6 a.m. from March 15 to June 1 and Sept. 1 to Nov. 1. They can keep pet cats indoors, on leashes or in caged “catios,” since cats kill an estimated 2.4 billion birds in the U.S. per year.They can also volunteer at Powdermill or visit it at 1795 Route 381. The reserve’s 3.6 miles of hiking trails are open daily from dawn to dusk. The avian center will hold free guided tours from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. on April 18 and May 2 and free open houses from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. on April 26 and May 17.This time of year, the nature center is open free from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and noon to 4:30 p.m. on Sundays, except on Easter. Winter hours are shorter.A free family nature walk takes place at 2 p.m. on the first Saturday of each month. The nature center also hosts summer camps. And both centers can arrange visits at other times. For information or registration for events at Powdermill or the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, see https://carnegiemnh.org/events.The post Unraveling bird mysteries at the Avian Research Center at Powdermill appeared first on NEXTpittsburgh. ...read more read less