Ron Refsnider had this interesting report on November 9th about an interesting situation that happened while they were banding songbirds at Springbrook Nature Center in Fridley. For some people this is going to be kind of morbid, but it's one of those interesting things that happens at banding stations that really gets me excited:

We trapped and banded an adult northern shrike this morning during the monthly banding operation at Fridley's Springbrook Nature Center. Unfortunately, it apparently became trapped as it forced its way into a trap that already contained a banded chickadee, then it killed the chickadee. We had banded the chickadee as a hatch-year bird back in 1999, and this was its 30th capture, so the shrike ended a long string of data that we had collected on its prey.

Another interesting capture today was of a chickadee that we had banded in February of 1995; thus, it's at least 10 years old and was still looking healthy.