The Everglades Science Center has been studying Roseate Spoonbills since 1939, starting with efforts by Audubon’s first director of research, Robert Porter Allen. In the early 2000s, Jerry Lorenz, PhD, state research director for Audubon Florida, started applying leg bands to Roseate Spoonbills in search of more information about their fluctuating populations. You can help this research by reporting your sighting of a banded Roseate Spoonbill.
Banded Roseate Spoonbills should have two bands: One lower on the leg (above the toes or above what most people refer to as the “ankle”) that is aluminum with a small 9-digit number engraved into it, and a larger, second band further up the opposite leg (above what most people call the “knee”). It is this larger leg band that we are interested in having you report here. This band should be a colored alphanumeric band with a two- or three-digit alphanumeric code that is more prominent and easy to read than the lower band. It should be noted that many of these alphanumeric bands that were put on chicks in the 2000’s have lost all paint and just appear as a blank gun-metal colored band that does not have a code any longer. We are still interested in these bands even if they can not be read.
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