Magnolia Warbler: Bird Banding

Todd Forsgren grew up bird watching and admiring Tory Peterson’s Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern and Central North America and John James Audubon’s Monograph, Birds of America. Back then, Audobon shot birds, and used pins and wires to distort them into the positions (quite dramatic) that eventually gathered praise in England and beyond. Peterson apparently was one of the first to utilize the field guide approach to artistic renditions of birds. Today, most ornithologists use mist nests — trapping unsuspecting birds long enough to size, sex, age and brand them before setting them free. Forsgren has taken the opportunity, as a former birder and an artist / photographer, to capture these elegant but embarrassing moments. As he says, “The birds inhabit a fascinating space between our framework of the bush and the hand. It is a fragile and embarrassing moment before they disappear back into the woods, and into data.”

Photographed: the Magnolia Warbler. More photos at his site.