Staff Writer

June Ficker keeps very meticulous notes. 

For the past 20 summers, June Ficker has been demonstrating the technique of banding birds at the Wells Reserve at Laudholm Farm.

As the morning sun peaks over the trees, Ficker has her table set up with all the tools necessary to band birds and record information. 

Ficker has banded 3,382 birds since she started at the reserve in 1988, she said. Of those, 1,314 birds were returns or repeats, meaning they were already banded. She said banding birds is a technique used to study the movement, survival and behavior of birds by placing a small band with an imprinted number around the bird’s leg.

With 10 12-meter mist nets spread out on the reserve property each Wednesday, Ficker and other volunteers check regularly throughout the morning for birds caught up in the net, Ficker said. At a demonstration net near the main building, Ficker finds a house finch caught up in one of the bottom pockets.

“We set up the mist nets and hope the bird does not see it, flies into it and gets caught up in one of these pockets,” Ficker said as she carefully worked the small bird out of the mesh.

Back at the table, Ficker bands the house finch and begins rattling off data about the bird for volunteers to document. She said she measures the wing chord, checks ossification of the bird’s skull to determine maturity, examines for traces of fat, measures the tail feathers, weighs and sexes the bird. 

Ficker said she also removes and collects any ticks she finds on the bird to send to Dr. Peter Rand at the Maine Medical Research Institute. She said nearly 80 percent of the ticks she has sent to be examined have tested positive for Lyme disease.

Her fascination of birds developed at a young age, Ficker said. 

“I have to confess, it was my father who gave me a salt shaker and told me to sprinkle the salt on the bird’s tail and you could capture it,” she said, adding she spent days running around her backyard trying to catch a bird. “Obviously I never caught one.” 

Around the time she was 8 years old, Ficker said her father bought her a canary and her interest grew from there. She attended Cornell University in New York and studied ornithology, later received training from Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences in Massachusetts and was certified to band birds. 

After collecting and recording all necessary data, Ficker passes the bird to Johanne Phaneuf, a visitor helping out for the day, to release it back into the wild. Phaneuf and Jean-Charles Baril stopped by the bird banding during their annual vacation from Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. 

Phaneuf grasps the bird with its head between her index and middle fingers, placing its feet on her opposite palm. Crouching low, she lifts her hand off the bird and it sits there for a moment before it flies off into the field. 

“His parents used to come here every summer and we’ve kept up the tradition,” she said, adding the couple attends the bird banding demonstration yearly.

While the morning progresses, people visiting the reserve for a stroll stop by the table to see what bird banding is all about. Since she started the demonstrations, Ficker said 10,652 people have dropped in to participate in the process. 

This year, Ficker said they are keeping track of the visitors too. Volunteer Joan Junker’s son joked one night about banding the visitors, and Ficker said she told him, “to put his money where his mouth is.” In return, his company donated 1,000 blue and 1,000 pink rubber bracelets with “Wells Reserve” and a number imprinted on each, Ficker said. 

“I wanted pink for girls and blue for boys,” Ficker said. “They thought it was a great idea.”

Ficker and her fellow volunteers set up the bird banding station just outside the main house on the reserve from 7 a.m. to noon Wednesdays through August, and in case of rain, Ficker said they meet on Thursdays. For more information, call the reserve at 646-1555.

Staff writer Emma Bouthillette can be reached at 282-4337 ext. 237.